Fiscal Responsibility Bill

I have made a clear statement about what I believe is the way that works best, and I trust that a future Government will be wise and will want to set competitive rates of tax on enterprise, success and rich people so that we tax them more in the way that I have described. That is clear advice that I am sure will not fall entirely on deaf ears, because it works and has worked in the past and elsewhere in the world. In clause 1, after the extraordinary claims and strange wording that I have mentioned, we go on to be told that in due course net debt has to start to fall as a proportion of gross domestic product, but only in the final year of the period. The Chancellor effectively confirmed that the Bill is drafted in that way because the Government do not believe they have any chance of getting net debt down as a proportion of our national income until 2015-16. That could well be after the next election but one, in two Governments' time rather than one. It is remarkable that they can be that precise in thinking that that will be possible by that stage. For once, I agree with their realism that, with their policies, they will not get net debt down any time soon, and not before 2015. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) rightly pointed out that the debt is grossly understated in the figures that the Government use. The Office for National Statistics has got nearer to the truth. I have always cited a figure of £3 trillion plus for the true level of debt and obligations of the British state. Now that the Government have gone to the aid of banks in difficult situations and allowed the pension deficits to build up so colossally, that is the kind of figure that we would come up with if the British state account were put on the basis on which the British state puts any reputable company account. I see no reason why it should be treated differently. Clause 1(3) is pretty meaningless, because the Government will clearly carry on using definitions of net debt that no one else believes. Everybody else knows that they greatly understate the position. That brings me to another problem with the Bill. The part about interpretation, definitions and so forth is one of the slenderest that I have ever seen in a piece of legislation. I presume that that is intentional and designed so that were there to be a future Labour Government in the time period in question, they could play all sorts of games with the definitions of net borrowing and net debt if things went wrong, just as Labour played all sorts of games with the cycle and the definitions of the golden rule in its earlier years in Government. The Bill is shoddy and unacceptable because there is no professionally and internationally agreed definition of the debt and borrowing that they are trying to measure. Doubtless they would want to leave quite a lot out by anybody else's standards of financial reporting. My hon. Friend the Member for Tatton made mincemeat of the Treasury imposing a duty on itself and of the fact that there are absolutely no sanctions on anyone involved in this sorry charade. It is not so much a case of Ministers giving themselves a "get out of jail free" card in case something goes wrong as giving themselves a card that says that no Minister ever goes to jail or suffers any other penalty of any kind, however bad, grotesque and wrong their implementation of the policy. The Bill is a worthless piece of paper and an unnecessary intrusion into what should be a serious debate. It will not take a trick with the bond markets in the City or with anybody in this place other than a few Labour loyalists. It is a political prank, an expensive press release. It is wasting the time of the House and it is completely unsubstantiated by any plans.