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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Oldham, West and Royton (Mr. Meacher). As he probably knows, I would always have voted for him in internal Labour party elections if only I had had a vote in those contests. I agree with much of what he said, and I shall return to it shortly. I have been taking part in Budget debates in this Chamber for 23 years. I know that that is a mere smidgen of time compared to the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack), but it is a fair spell none the less. I warmly congratulate the Chancellor of the Exchequer, not on the direction of his Budget and still less on its content but certainly on its timing. He is one of the few Chancellors in recent times—over those 23 years—who have resisted the temptation to hold Budgets in the middle of the Cheltenham National Hunt festival. For that, and that alone, I am profoundly grateful, together with many other people in the country, and in that spirit of generosity I warmly congratulate him. I said that I had participated in 23 Budget debates, but that is not entirely true. During the first, I was unfortunately and, of course, entirely unjustly suspended from the Chamber by a narrow vote of 354 to 19. It was, obviously, a close-run thing. Any of the 354 who are present now—certainly the hon. Member for South Staffordshire—will recognise the error of their ways. Checking the record today, however, I noted that one of the 19 was the Minister for Children, Young People and Families, the right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Dawn Primarolo). I do not forget these things. Let me assure the right hon. Lady that if—perish the thought—the Portillo effect were to overcome her in the coming election, a warm ministerial welcome would await her north of the border. However, I am sure that no such unfortunate circumstance will befall her in the coming campaign. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury was unfortunate to miss the start of the debate today. Had he been present, he would have been treated to a fascinating vignette featuring the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families—the next Chancellor but one—and the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), the shadow Business Secretary, who were discussing whether the cuts proposed by the Government would indeed be deeper and tougher than those made by Margaret Thatcher. I do not think there is much doubt about the Chancellor's view. I have consulted Nick Robinson's Newslog, which has clearly overtaken Hansard as the main record of such matters. Last Thursday's edition reads as follows:""I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:""Robinson: 'The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's—do you accept that?'""Darling: 'They will be deeper and tougher'."" As far as the Chancellor was concerned, that seemed to be a pretty direct answer to a direct question, but as far as the Secretary of State was concerned earlier in today's debate, that was not the position as he understood it—initially, I thought, just for his Department, but it then emerged that, as he understood it, it was not the position for the entire Government. We went through a range of possible explanations, one of which was incredible. The Schools Secretary actually suggested that Margaret Thatcher had not been engaged in cutting education funding in real terms. I think he should tell Baron Hattersley, who on 12 July 1988 said that the then Prime Minister was planning "massive cuts" in education spending. Clearly, however, the passing of time has altered the Schools Secretary's memory of such occasions. Perhaps he was not advising Baron Hattersley at that particular time.