Fiscal Responsibility Bill

I rise to support the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hertfordshire (Mr. Gauke). I am grateful to him for considering the problem that I, and others, posed on Second Reading. It beggars belief that a Government who have spent so much time claiming credit for the automatic stabilisers that all Governments have always used—it is something that happens naturally—should now try to legislate to stop their operation. They seem to be doing so in the spirit of a Government who think that their days are numbered and that it would be very amusing to pre-empt all the Budgets of the next Parliament by laying down in law what the overall shape of those Budgets should be. Moreover, they are doing so in such a way that if they leave a mess that results in a further downturn, or even a period of very disappointing growth, which is a possibility, the automatic stabilisers would not come into effect on the scale that they naturally would otherwise, so there would have to be offsetting action. I hope that the Minister shows, for once, that he is master of his brief, as he boasted at the beginning of the debate, and that he can understand this point and therefore wishes to support his Prime Minister's previous position, which was that the automatic stabilisers are a very good thing, and does not wish in any way to pre-empt their operation through the clause. Clause 1, which we are seeking to amend, is the kernel of this miserable piece of legislation. It says, correctly, that the excessively large deficit that the Government have built up has to be curbed. As my hon. Friend said, we object to it for two principled reasons. First, a deficit is curbed not by legislation but by changing one's spending and/or taxing plans so that one controls the budgets properly and sets them sensibly. Our second objection is that the profile of the reductions is wrong. It is not essential to cut the deficit in every year over a long period—not least, as we have heard, because of the need to look at the state of the economy—but it is terribly important to get on with cutting the deficit much more quickly than the Bill demands or the Government are requesting.