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Finance Bill

There has been a degree of hysteria from Members on the Con-Dem Benches this evening. It might be the lateness of the hour, or there might be another reason, but I have been disturbed by the amount of sneering and laughing by Government Members at the serious points that Opposition Members, who are concerned about the Bill's implications for their constituents throughout the length and breadth of this great nation, have made. A little humility from Government Members and, particularly, from the Liberal Democrats would not go amiss. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and all Government Members would benefit from some counselling from Gamblers Anonymous, because they are gambling massively with the British economy. Although history teaches us that their gamble is doomed to fail, they are ploughing on regardless—just like a wretched compulsive gambler betting on a course of action with incredibly long odds, in the vain hope that it will turn out all right in the end. Crossing fingers and hoping for the best is not a credible economic prospectus. The Chancellor is pursuing the same old stale, worn out and inept Tory economic policies that have failed the country before and are set to fail it again. However, the Con-Dem coalition is not betting on a horse, but playing with the lives and livelihoods of the British people. Just like its Tory predecessors in the 1930s, the 1980s and the 1990s, this Con-Dem coalition is, yet again, making the wrong choice. It is risking the fragile recovery that the Labour Administration worked so hard to secure. [Laughter.] Yes, they like laughing—that is typical of the Con-Dem Benches. The fact is that the Government's corporation tax proposals provide inadequate support for businesses. The Chancellor's very own Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that his Budget will result in lower growth not just this year, but next year as well. How will that help business? Are Government Members laughing at that? If growth declines, that will not help business at all. On top of that, the OBR says that unemployment will be caused. The OBR's predictions remind me of two notorious Tory maxims coined by a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer and a former Prime Minister. One said that""unemployment…is a price worth paying"" and the other, John Major, said:""If it isn't hurting, it isn't working."" However, as the shadow Chief Secretary pointed out earlier, the situation is even worse than is indicated by the OBR's predictions. The number of people who will lose their jobs will be far higher than the figures that have surfaced so far. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury says that Opposition Members are in denial. I put it to him and to other Government Members that they are in denial. It is their policies—those failed policies—that led to interest rates that averaged 10% during the Tories' 18 years in power and that hit 15% on one occasion. I say to Government Members that they are in denial. Their failed policies, which they want to pursue again, resulted in record numbers of repossessions and millions of people ending up in negative equity. That, in turn, had a massive impact on the construction industry and the ancillary trades that rely on a buoyant housing market. We all remember how the failed policies now being pursued again by Government Members resulted in unemployment that exceeded 3 million. Government Members are in denial about the fact that manufacturing was decimated by the policies that they are pursuing. They smashed the coal industry, nearly wiped out the steel industry, almost destroyed the British car industry and torpedoed British shipbuilding. They are in denial because they want to destroy the very instruments that will help the recovery, by undermining the regional development agencies and by taking away the loan to Sheffield Forgemasters, which would have had such a big impact in assisting the resurgence of the nuclear industry in this country. The Con-Dem coalition is in denial because of its unrealistic expectation of growth in respect of the exports that it expects to achieve while the worldwide economy is in a fragile state.