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Legislative Programme and Budget Statement (Wales)

I almost always agree with what Joseph Stiglitz says, and he was absolutely right about that. We have already seen the markets reneging. They pressed for a draconian Budget and radical cuts in the public sector and in public services, and they promised to sweep in, fill the gap and pick up the people who were thrown on to the scrapheap, but what do we see right now? We see the FTSE plummeting, as it did yesterday, bond yields declining dramatically and the gold price going up—all clear indicators that the Budget has not reassured the markets. The markets are much more worried about the long-term impact of a failure to re-stimulate growth in our economy and are concerned that the very thing that they did not want to see—a longer or double dip recession—might be exactly what is prompted by the cuts. A clear set of such indicators is already emerging from the City. We can also look around the world. The other fundamental underpinning of the Budget idea for growth is that we would see export-driven growth, creating the fabled 2.5 million jobs in Britain through an export-driven economy over the next five years. Exactly where will we export those products? Only today we have seen slowing growth in China and, yesterday, figures out of the US saying that its economy is slowing dramatically. We anticipate further indications from the US that it, too, will not be buying our products when the non-farm payroll figures come out at the end of this week. We all know that Europe, our principal trading partner, is absolutely unable to buy our products and services. We should therefore be worried about what we have seen of the Treasury figures brought to us this morning by The Guardian. The Office for Budget Responsibility concludes that there will be job losses—100,000 in the public sector and perhaps 140,000 in the private sector, per annum. Again, that gives the lie to the notion that we can cut the public sector without any impact on the private sector. They are symbiotically linked and if we cut one the other will bleed. Those job losses will arrive, the OBR says, and I see no indication that we can be hopeful, as the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State clearly are, of seeing that magical figure of 2.5 million new private sector jobs filling the void. We should look at the facts. I wonder whether any hon. Member looked at yesterday’s statement from 12 of our leading companies—including Morrisons, the train company Arriva, Jaguar and the Co-operative—saying that they have no intention of expanding their work forces over the next 12 to 24 months. As I said, I worked in an industry, the biotech industry, which over the past five years has been doing what most of the big industrial players are doing—deleveraging, paying down their debt and getting ready to weather the long storm that they know is coming and which they know will be compounded by this Government’s Budget.