Finance Bill

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for calling me to speak and for selecting new clauses 10 and 20 for debate this evening. I am grateful to my 20 colleagues who are the new clauses' co-signatories. Many others who have not signed have said that they will support the new clauses in the Lobby at the end of this part of the debate if I exercise my right to move them formally, should that be appropriate. I shall speak mainly to new clause 20, which supersedes and replaces new clause 10, which has a slight textual error. New clause 20(3)(a) specifies an addition to the personal allowance of £600, rather than the £120 that was incorrectly printed in new clause 10. The new clauses are otherwise identical, but new clause 20 is the framework for my address to the House this evening. The level of taxation is a crucial and sensitive performance indicator for any Government. There are many myths about the differences between parties, and they are persistent. At least one of those myths was laid to rest in 1997, when the incoming Labour Government famously committed to—and delivered on—public expenditure levels that were unchanged from those of the previous Conservative Government. It is perhaps a measure of the Opposition's esteem for this Government that they have committed—if they were to return to power in, say, 2015, or some later date—to stick to our public expenditure levels for a two-year period. That is an echo of what we did 11 years ago, and I welcome it. However, some myths persist, and one was exposed very effectively by a well-known commentator on these matters, Andrew Dilnot, at the time of most recent conferences of the three main parties. He said that the electorate would see the ““customary but bizarre spectacle”” of the two parties—the main Opposition party and the Labour party—emphasising the differences between us on public expenditure and taxation, even though they were quite minor. In an important section of his article, he went on to state:"““Even when you take borrowing into account by looking at total spending rather than just taxation, during every year that Mrs. Thatcher was in power, except the last two when the economy was in an unsustainable boom, her government spent more of national income than Mr. Blair's did.””" The crucial sentence followed, and I hope that Members will hang on to it and perhaps wake up at 3 o'clock tomorrow morning and say, ““Is that really right?”” It reads:"““Her Government averaged public spending of 45.4 per cent. of national income””" between May 1979 and when she fell, in Paris or elsewhere, in November 1990. The Government of Mr. Blair, our own former Prime Minister, in the 10-year period between May 1997 and when he stepped down last June, averaged 39.7 per cent., which is almost 6 per cent. less public expenditure as a proportion of gross domestic product. That should lay to rest the myth—it is patently false—that modern Labour Governments are reckless high spenders and excessive taxers. That is a myth and the figures give the lie to it.