Amendment of the law

I say with all sincerity that it is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Fylde (Mr. Jack), who made pertinent and sensible points. He talked a lot about forecasts. As a Member who is a bit of a sad case, I spent some of yesterday evening reading the noble Lord Healey's autobiography "The Time of My Life", in which he was critical of the forecasts that he got as Chancellor in 1974, 1975 or whenever it was. He said that all the errors that he was making—he writes about them quite freely—were due to the fact that the forecasting was all wrong, or at least very far wrong. The right hon. Gentleman discussed coming back from working in his garden and finding that the forecasts had changed, and he was absolutely right about that. I call it "the complexity of Budget ratiocination". Budgets are extraordinarily complicated—how they are put together is something of a miracle. At the beginning of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman put forward the example of a Chinese meal—the time it took to figure out, the indigestion and the rest of it. That reminds me of Rab Butler's comment as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that it takes about six months to figure out the Budget. By the time we get round to figuring it out, it is time for the next pre-Budget report. I certainly agree with the right hon. Gentleman's sentiment that we do not have full economic debates here—but then we do not have full debates at all. The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) was saying how we could save £5 billion by getting rid of the identity card scheme, but nobody mentioned saving £5 billion by getting rid of Trident, for example. I am not suggesting that we should, but I am saying that there is a debate. If we have a debate about the economy, we ought to have one about the country. We were asked what would happen to businesses if business forecasts were way out. The Government's difficulty, however, is that they have to run a country. One of the points that I make—it links in with what the right hon. Member for Fylde said—is that we need a debate on our economy and country, on where we are and where we stand. We could take that opportunity, given that we are coming up to the second decade of the 21st century. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned boom and bust. This is the first Budget in 12 years of a Labour Government that has come in a recession. I am willing to accept that the boom period began under the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke). We had a period of stability that we could call a "boom". Now, however, there is a global recession, and that is a fact no matter how we debate it. It affects Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the United States. Some 20 million workers in China are losing their jobs. As I mentioned, I am a sad case—I have also looked at the Brazilian economy and what steps the Brazilians are taking to face the recession. However we look at the issue, we cannot get away from the fact that this is the first global recession that we have seen.