The noble Lord is saying that the Official Opposition do not intend to make any pledges, which is interesting because I thought I heard last week that there was a proposal for a mansion tax and that that would be funded by other means. I thought that was a specific spending commitment beyond 2015-16.
My second point picks up on one from the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, who made a thoughtful contribution. We overwhelmingly agree that the most effective way to alleviate poverty and raise standards is to create jobs. I would have thought that there would be some recognition that the Government’s record on that has been quite reasonable. We would of course like it to be very much better, but contrary to some other countries that are wrestling with the same problems our unemployment rate continues to fall. We now have the highest level of private sector employment in our history and a million new private sector jobs since the last election. That suggests that moves to reform taxation and stimulate the economy are beginning to have some effect, and that they are the best way of tackling this.
We have an Urgent Question coming up on the rating agency decision: the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, referred to this. I was reading through the decision and thinking of making a contribution to the Urgent Question, which I will not now do having secured the Floor in this debate. Moody’s statement,
“explains that the UK’s creditworthiness remains extremely high … because of the country’s significant credit strengths”,
chief among which are,
“a strong track record of fiscal consolidation and a robust institutional structure”.
That is quite interesting. In fact, going beyond that, we are again warned about what could happen to the country’s inflation and the cost of borrowing if the country were to be downgraded again.
Further down, on what could move the rating up or down, Moody’s statement says that,
“downward pressure on the rating could arise if government policies were unable to stabilise and begin to ease the UK’s debt burden during the multi-year fiscal consolidation programme”.
So there is a case for fiscal consolidation. There needs to be a recognition that the Government’s policies of raising tax thresholds and increasing employment are beginning to have some effect.
Notwithstanding that, I come to a point of agreement, which I made at Second Reading: no one on any side of the House is cheering on this measure. It is an economic necessity. It is certainly not something that anyone takes pleasure in.