Proceeding contribution from Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 18 April 2012. It occurred during Debate on bill and Committee of the Whole House (HC) on Finance (No. 4) Bill (Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and certain new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax).
(Clauses 1, 4, 8, 189 and 209, Schedules 1, 23 and 33, and certain new Clauses and new Schedules relating to value added tax)
That is absolutely right, but I want to be careful in answering. It is not good enough to say that people in the north or Wales or Northern Ireland or Scotland will lose, because unemployment and poverty in London is enormous. The geographical areas are not the ones traditionally described in lazy journalism—it is not that the north is poor and the south is rich—because pockets of poverty and of wealth exist in every single constituency in the country. The hon. Lady is right, however, that there are such pockets. Even with all the pain and austerity, and the social and economic problems that the Government's plans will cause, the Chancellor has been able to find a tax cut for millionaires. How does he justify it? Whatever his justification, the measure does not make sense economically, to answer the points made by the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Alun Cairns), who seemed to think that the measure is economically robust. The Government's fiscal rules—that the structural current deficit should be in balance and that debt is falling as a share of GDP in the final year of the forecast—are under enormous pressure. The problem—this is the evidence we ought to look at—is that the deficit in this Budget was forecast in the 2011 Red Book for 2011-12 to be £90 billion, but it is now forecast to be £98 billion. That is £8 billion worse than planned. The net borrowing requirement in the 2011 Red Book was forecast for 2011-12 to be £122 billion; it is now £126 billion. That is £4 billion worse than planned. The national debt or the treaty ratio that was due to peak at 87.2% of GDP—£1.25 trillion—in 2013-14 is now expected to rise, on the same count, to 92.7% of GDP in 2014-15. That is up again; it is worse than the Government's forecasts. Everything is going in the wrong direction, so this is the wrong time to forgo revenue yield.
Secondary information
- Type
- Proceeding contribution
- Reference
- 543 c365
- Session
- 2010-12
- Chamber / Committee
- House of Commons chamber
- Subjects
- Devolved matters Aviation Corporation tax Banks Caravans Air passenger duty Income tax Food Economic situation Personal income Northern Ireland Passengers Scotland Wales Tax avoidance Taxation Repairs and maintenance Tax rates and bands Religious buildings Take-away food Wealth Regional airports Bank levy
- Legislation
- Finance Bill 2010-12 to 2012-13
- Link
- View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk
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