Fiscal Responsibility Bill

It has been striking, in the brief course of this Bill, just how embarrassed the Labour party and the Government are about it. On Second Reading, we did not have a single contribution from a Labour Back Bencher in support of the Bill. The explanation given by the Exchequer Secretary, in the course of her winding-up speech, was that perhaps those who wanted to make a contribution were not able to do so because of the bad weather. Well, the weather is fine today and, despite the best efforts of the Government Whips, we have had one contribution from a Labour Back Bencher that could be said to be mildly supportive. It was from the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd), although his argument was that the Bill gave us an opportunity to debate the matter and he did not expect it to become legislation in any event. He did not sound unduly unhappy about that state of affairs. Even on Second Reading it was clear that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not have his heart in proposing the Bill. He explained that if there was a major recession the terms of the Bill would have to be ignored anyway. Even by his standards, he had the lugubrious and weary tone of someone who did not really want to be there, and his body language was almost enough to say, "That's another fine mess you've got me into, Gordon." Since then, the Chancellor has had one of his periodic bouts of assertiveness and has started giving lengthy newspaper interviews about cuts in public spending, although it is noticeable that he has stopped talking about this Bill. Even the Chancellor does not take it seriously enough, or believe that the public will take it seriously enough, to be bothered to advocate its merits. We have not had enough time to debate the matter. The Minister said that there had been sufficient time, but I am not sure how many Bills there have been on which consideration in Committee has not got beyond clause 1, which is what has happened on this occasion. I suspect that the Lords will not have an opportunity either to scrutinise the Bill sufficiently. Unlike with most Bills, there has not been an opportunity for evidence sessions to hear what the experts say. Given that this Bill is all about creating the right impression, one would have thought that that would have been of some use. It is not surprising, however, that we have been denied the opportunity to hear what the experts have to say, given that practically every public comment on the Bill has dismissed it. I have quoted at length already various economist and business leaders. One person whom I have not quoted, however, is Lord Turnbull, former Cabinet Secretary and permanent secretary to the Treasury, who last week wrote in the Financial Times that""an external constraint is needed… It should not take the form of a statutory limit on borrowing, as the present government proposes. Remember the fate of the US Gramm-Rudman act and the European Union's stability and growth pact…More promising is the proposal for an office of budget responsibility…Its purpose should be to provide authoritative judgments and commentary that ministers ignore at their peril—in other words, to raise the political cost of bad policy."" There is a credibility gap that needs to be filled. The Government are right to identify the need to provide reassurance to the bond market and the public as a whole. It is right that we try to improve parliamentary accountability in public finances; that we give Members proper information to hold a Chancellor to account; that we put pressure on any Government to meet their fiscal objectives; that the tools to provide internal Government discipline and ensure fiscal responsibility are improved; and that we try to do something to enhance credibility with the bond markets to ensure that interest rates can be kept low for as long as possible. However, the Bill does not do that. An office of budget responsibility would do that.