Fiscal Responsibility Bill

My hon. Friend raises an important point. One of the benefits of an office for budget responsibility would be that we could provide some credibility in exactly that area. If, as the Bill implies, it will not be possible to use the fiscal levers from 2011 to 2016, that would appear to signal the complete collapse of the Government's position, which is that fiscal levers are a very important element of what a Government can do. One might ask why the born-again Keynesians on the Labour Benches will be walking through the Lobby in support of the Bill given that that is what it says, as they would know if they actually read it. To be fair to the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran, she has read the Bill and she will not be walking through that Lobby; I wonder whether many of her colleagues will be joining her. Alternatively, perhaps, as ever with Labour Governments, fiscal discipline will be there for as long as it is absolutely expedient, as in the case of the abandoning of the fiscal rules at the point at which they prove to be a constraint. The Chancellor gave us the answer earlier today when he stated that if there were a recession and difficulties in the economy, the Chancellor would simply have to come back and explain to us that the target was not going to be met. If that is really the case, then we have to ask what on earth is the point of the Bill. If the Government genuinely wanted to increase the institutional pressures to reduce the deficit, they could have followed our policy and established an office for budget responsibility that could publish its own fiscal forecasts. We have heard several times today about the Treasury's failures in its own fiscal forecasts. It could make recommendations as to whether the Government would meet their stated objectives in reducing the deficit or whether further action was necessary, and of course it could be a much more sophisticated instrument than the targets set out in the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) pointed out, the difficulties that exist and the use of the private finance initiative and other off-balance-sheet mechanisms have done little for the Government's credibility in this area. Truth be told, whatever the Government propose at this stage, there is nothing that they can do to restore their credibility. This Government are to fiscal responsibility what Tiger Woods is to marital fidelity. The Chancellor had his chance to set out a credible path to fiscal responsibility—indeed, we read the leaks suggesting that he fought to put forward proposals that would have delivered something close to credibility—but the man whom we thought was unsackable was still too weak to stand up to the Prime Minister and the Schools Secretary, and yet again we had a pre-Budget report that did nothing to address the Government's lack of credibility. The Chancellor could have set out spending plans that would have reassured the markets, and in doing so perhaps protected his own legacy, but he failed to do so. Instead we have this pathetic excuse for a Bill. As the right hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Clarke) has pointed out, it is vacuous and irrelevant. At a time of crisis in the public finances, we need leadership that will rise to the occasion. We need a man with a plan, not a man with a stunt. If the UK is to have fiscal credibility again, there is one necessary condition. It is not this Bill, it is a change of Government.