Pre-Budget Report

I see. So, increases have been brought forward. That means that benefits will go up this year and go down again next year, so that is not a reduction. I will remember that for the future. This pre-Budget report is the dying gasp of a weak, divided and incompetent Government. [Hon. Members: "Here we go."] Yes, here we do go. This is a Government led by a Prime Minister who has betrayed the office he holds by blocking the tough action to deal with the deficit that the Treasury has advised is necessary. He is placing the prosperity of millions of British people in jeopardy for the sake of his wretched dividing lines, and he is gambling on their jobs to try to save his own. There will be £789 billion-worth of extra borrowing over the next six years, doubling the national debt again to nearly £1.5 trillion. There is no credible plan for dealing with the deficit, no honesty on spending and certainly no spending review. There will be a higher deficit in 2013-14, as a percentage of gross domestic product, than when Denis Healey went to the International Monetary Fund. As Labour is too weak to take the action necessary to tackle the deficit, it has had to admit in the PBR that a Labour victory in the general election would mean, as has already been announced, an extra £7.8 billion-worth of taxes, which is £370 per family. The vast majority of that money will come from the national insurance tax increase, which will affect everyone who earns more than £14,000. It would also mean a further £30 billion-worth of tax increases, which are shown in the figures but unexplained. That is another £925 per family being hidden from view until after the election. Despite the Government's best efforts at obfuscation, this PBR has made crystal clear the reward that the people of Britain would get if they were to re-elect this Government: higher taxes and higher interest rates. The PBR is an admission of surrender; it is the capitulation of new Labour. Labour is abandoning any pretence of being serious about restoring the public finances to health and getting Britain back on the road to prosperity. It is abandoning all those who are working, striving and saving for a better future for themselves and their children. It is retreating to its core support and turning its back on aspiration. It is failing the country in its hour of economic need. If the Prime Minister does not have the courage or the competence to deliver the change that Britain needs, let him at least do the decent thing and call an election at the earliest opportunity and let somebody else try to undo the damage that this wretched Government are doing to Britain's credibility and creditworthiness, before it is too late.