It is a pleasure, Ms Primarolo, to serve under your chairmanship this morning. I shall speak to the Opposition amendment to clause 1 and about clause 16, which relate to income tax rates and reliefs.
The Opposition believe that politics is about priorities—about providing support to those who need it most, rather than to those with the broadest shoulders. This has never been more the case than in the country’s current economic climate—a parlous economic climate which, let us remind ourselves, has seen just 0.8% growth since autumn 2010, compared with the 5.3% that was forecast at the time. The economy continues to stagnate under this Government, leading to the independent Office for Budget Responsibility halving its predictions for 2013 and anticipating growth of only 0.6% this year, compared with the 1.2% forecast just four months ago.
We have surely now reached the stage where we must ask ourselves what further evidence the Chancellor needs before he accepts that his economic plan is catastrophically failing. Once again, I note the lack of Conservative Members on the Government Benches. Perhaps Back Benchers are demonstrating their lack of confidence in the Chancellor’s plan which, I am sure they would agree, is far from acceptable.
The latest criticism of this failure came on Tuesday, with the International Monetary Fund downgrading its forecast for UK economic growth to 0.7%, in contrast to its view a month ago, when the IMF said that growth of 1% could be expected. Having subjected the UK to the biggest downgrade of any developed country for 2013 and 2014, the IMF commented:
“In the United Kingdom, the recovery is progressing slowly, notably in the context of weak external demand and ongoing fiscal consolidation.”
It went on to say:
“Greater near-term flexibility in the path of fiscal adjustment should be considered in the light of lacklustre private demand”.
In simple terms, it is time for plan B.