I continue to consult on who my constituents would like to see as the next PM. A good number have written into my email and some have expressed views here. The Wokingham Conservative Association has also consulted and is letting me know the balance of opinion amongst members who of course have a vote in any final ballot assuming there are two candidates with more than 100 MPs backing them. I am also seeking the views of the candidates on various matters of importance.
Author: johnredwood
The state of the economy and those official forecasts
Consumer confidence remains stuck at the ultra low level of minus 47 on the Gfk index. Retail sales fell again in September. The public sector borrowing figure came in at a hefty £20 bn for September, £5.2bn more than the OBR forecast. All this is proof of a weakening economy. So why do the Bank and some in the Treasury think we need to slow it down more? Can’t they see that will increase the borrowing we need to do, as slowdown reduces tax revenue growth and increases benefits expenditure.
In the previous two years I had to disagree with the OBR stating they had greatly exaggerated the borrowing needed, as it turned out they had. This year I said I thought their forecast was too low. In the six months to September state net debt has risen by £44.7bn more than the OBR forecast. It reinforces my general point that their forecasting model does not seem to pick up the sensitivity of borrowing to the rate of growth in the economy. Speed it up as last year and revenues surge cutting borrowing needed. Slow the economy down as this year and the reverse happens. It was also clear there had to be policy change to spend more to offset the energy package as has happened.
Given the wonky way they account for interest charges there will be a big windfall decline in interest costs as soon as inflation comes down. Actual interest being paid as cash payments remains low and very affordable. There could be something like a £30bn fall in their stated interest part of total spending going forward from next year.
Meanwhile the mainstream media send out the misleading narrative that a few tax cuts-not the huge spending package on energy- sank the bond market. They refuse to talk about The Bank selling bonds and deliberately driving rates higher. They ignore the bond sell offs in the USA and Europe. US mortgages are over 6% now. The Treasury and Bank establishment have lots of little helpers.
Another leadership election
As if 4 Chancellors in 4 months was not enough we are now pitching for 3 Prime Ministers in 3 months and maybe a fifth Chancellor. It is an irony that a small group who were determined to pull both Boris and Liz down claim we need to stabilise the markets!
Their attitude to the members is arrogant, preferring them not to have a vote or upending anyone they vote for that they did not want. It makes it extremely difficult for anyone elected as PM as they are under constant fire from their own side from people who will abuse their privileged access and look for any slip or error. Having healthy debate about policy and decisions is good. Personal attacks and venom is destructive and puts many good people off politics.
We now have a short space of time to do again what was done at leisurely pace this summer. The members should look for someone with Conservative views and reject the idea that we want a so called grown up who will do everything the establishment and the international institutions tell them. The establishment gave us the inflation and now seem determined to give us a recession. Why trust them when their forecasts were so wrong and when they continuously lied to us about the inflation they caused but denied for so long.
”Grown ups” usually want to put us back under EU rules, to gold plate any global trend and Treaty requirement even when it is clearly damaging to us, to frustrate the self employed and small business, and to back the big boom/bust swings of Central bank policies as they lurch from printing too much money to stopping credit too abruptly.
My interview with Dan Wootton on GB News in which we discuss economic policy
You can watch my interview which starts at 1:22:27
The run up to the budget
The budget is now a crucial moment for this government. It has to demonstrate that there is a growth strategy, and show how decisions will be made to limit the downturn and point the economy to a better future. It is made more difficult by wanting to put up Corporation tax, making the UK a less attractive destination for inward investment and new jobs, and reducing company cashflows for new domestic investment by companies already here. Since the Chancellor spoke about reversing tax proposals various independent forecasters have been cutting their growth forecasts.
The government has placed itself at the mercy of OBR forecasts. The OBR needs to lift its current year forecast of the budget deficit which I said would be an understatement when they made it. It needs to update it for the extra spending the government has now committed as a response to the energy crisis. It needs to reflect for the following year the likely slowing of revenue growth as a result of economic downturn. The government needs to tell the nation that whatever it does borrowing will be higher over the next year or so. The choice is whether to offer some offset to the hit to real incomes from higher interest rates and higher energy costs in order to limit the downturn, or whether to end up borrowing even more because the downturn is deeper and longer. It seems likely the OBR will follow the Bank of England in predicting no growth and maybe a recession in 2023. The crucial 2025/6 year forecast which affects the budget judgement needs to be more realistic than last year’s deficit forecast. There will be a windfall on the debt interest programme given the way they state it. As inflation comes down so on their definition the interest programme falls sharply.
The government needs to review the list of projects to expand UK capacity listed in the Growth Plan 2022 released by the last Chancellor. Several important oil and gas field developments are missing at a time when we need to swell the domestic production of fuels. This would boost revenues at home and cut carbon dioxide from transporting and liquifying imports. The road schemes need to be ones which increase capacity on main roads to allow people going to work in vehicles freedom from so many traffic jams. They can then book an additional appointment in the day. They should add small modular nuclear reactors to the list where pump priming state investment could lead to a major new manufacturing activity to be privately financed with opportunity for exports.
The government needs reviews of regulations, licencing and subsidy regimes where they affect our ability to grow more of our own food, deliver more of our own energy and produce more of our own industrial products. Your ideas would b e of interest as to what a good Growth strategy should look like.
What economic policy now? (written for Telegraph)
The abrupt decision to sack the Chancellor and to signal a 31% hike in business taxes was a bad idea. It leaves the government searching for more to fill its Growth strategy. The political debate over the growth strategy is now even more fevered and not well informed. Critics of the tax cutting plans assume the borrowing levels that result will be too high, and lasered in on wanting to hike Corporation tax to correct the elusive number they use for the alleged excessive borrowing. They should wait to see the spending plans, and to read the government’s considered forecasts of what might happen to revenues and outgoings as a result of all the changes. The new Chancellor needs to work up convincing spending, taxing and borrowing numbers with OBR assessment. The OBR need to get a lot better at forecasting deficits as they are so crucial to tax judgements.
It is clear that after two years of wild pessimism about likely borrowing by the OBR, this year their forecast for borrowing was too low. I have found myself having to disagree with OBR forecasts three years running. The truth of the current situation is whether we raise Corporation tax or not, borrowing this year will be considerably higher than forecast. The main reason is the cost of the energy package. All agree we need to do enough to help hard pressed consumers and businesses. Forecasting the cost of the current scheme depends on the gas and electricity price over the winter, which could ease the costs or could escalate them. Tweaking the scheme to limit all household consumers to the controlled price for a specified amount sufficient for the average house could cut costs a bit, charge better off consumers with large houses more on the extra fuel they burn, and be a further incentive to reduce fuel use. We need to be generous to those on low incomes but careful with overall spending on this package.
The choice we are making is do we hike taxes now with the likelihood that this would intensify the downturn and lengthen a possible recession, or do we provide more offset to the downturn through a mixture of financial support and tax reductions? Arguably we will have lower overall new borrowing if we offset some of the downturn than if we rush into tax rises. The economy is going to slow whatever taxes we set, as the Bank of England is determined to drive interest rates and mortgage rates up whilst the high energy prices are like a huge tax rise on all of us. The more we pay for energy the less we have to pay for other things, and the fewer jobs and incomes there will be supplying the discretionary items that many have to give up. As mortgages are forced up so mortgage holders can afford less. Tax rises will deepen the downturn and slash the revenues as a result.
Amidst all the extreme argument there is some agreement. Most MPs agreed with cutting National Insurance as we do not need a higher tax on jobs at this juncture. Most MPs agree with the general principle of offsetting some of the impact of the energy price hikes to stop a worse downturn. The idea of a Growth strategy is still a good one. If the economy grows faster we get more revenue and have less spending on benefits as more people have better paid jobs and more are in work.
Instead of trying to undermine the Growth strategy the critics should be urging it on and demanding more action. We still await the details of the investments, regulatory changes, incentives, Enterprise Zones and the rest that it will need to boost our capacity, increase domestic energy and home grown food and expand industrial capacity. I want to see a bold set of measures, alongside a budget that tells me what the income is likely to be and what will be spent. Anyone who wishes our country well would want this too. Rushing to make the UK a less desirable place for businesses to invest and create jobs would not be a good start to such a strategy. When we know the whole package we can discuss its balance. We cannot afford tax rises, as these will worsen the downturn and cut the overall revenues.
My Speech during the Energy Prices Bill debate
Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): I welcome the Government’s announcement today that this scheme should be time-limited to six months and that a different scheme should be developed against the possibility that energy prices remain very high for the months thereafter. I do not think that we can go on indefinitely at the rate of the cost of this particular scheme over the winter. If this continues, we need to target the support much more clearly on the many people and families in this country who could not afford the bills otherwise and leave those who have rather more money and are using rather more energy on luxuries to pay more of that for themselves. We have time to sort out a scheme that we can target better. I am sure that this Committee, and the dialogue that will continue, will make sure, through pressure from Back Benchers and Front Benchers, that we do not leave anybody out. It is very important that everybody has proper support one way or another so that they can afford their energy bills this winter and beyond.
I am also sure that the long-term solution is more domestic energy. We cannot carry on relying on unreliable imports, which can, at times, force our country to pay extreme prices on world markets to top up our gas or electricity because we do not have enough for ourselves. We are a fortunate country with many opportunities to produce fossil fuel and renewable energy. We have been a bit lax in recent years in not putting in enough investment, so I hope that the Secretary of State will look again at the incentives—as I am sure he will—and at the predictability of contracts and investment, so that Britain is a great place in which to invest for these purposes, and so we can exploit more of our energy and have more reliable supplies, even generating a surplus in some areas so that we can help Europe, which is very short of energy and does not have many of our natural advantages.
My concluding point is that we cannot go on for too long with a complex net of subsidies, price controls and interventions without damaging the marketplace more widely and sending the wrong signals, so I am glad that this measure will be short-term. We need a better system for the future so that there can be plenty of support for those on low incomes if energy prices remain high, but also much more investment to solve the underlying problem.
My Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Economy Statement
Rt Hon Sir John Redwood MP (Wokingham) (Con): What will the impact of these measures be on the growth rate, and will we still avoid recession?
Jeremy Hunt MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer: I will publish the economic forecasts from the OBR when I make my statement in a fortnight’s time. I think it is better for me to wait until I hear that. The proper answer to my right hon. Friend’s question is that what we are seeking is a long-term sustainable increase in the economic growth rate. That is a central policy of the Prime Minister, which has my wholehearted support.
My Conservative Home article on Treasury orthodoxy
So why did Kwasi Kwarteng and Liz truss campaign against Treasury orthodoxy? And why did Liz truss then give a win to that same Treasury orthodoxy by sacking her Chancellor and imposing a business tax rise just as the fans of Treasury orthodoxy had always said?
We cannot be sure. One of the strangest things was the absence of a definitive speech by either on what Treasury orthodoxy was, or why it was wrong. I think I know what they meant, but maybe my view was more conventional and restrained than theirs. The problem with challenging the establishment without explaining why or what you replace it with was you could end up losing, devoid a clear alternative. Nor was it any good sacking a High Priest of Treasury 0rthodoxy , the Permanent Secretary ,without having a ready replacement who did know what you meant and what changes you wished to make.
I have argued for some time that the Treasury and Bank are necessary institutions to impose discipline. The Treasury should do a better job at securing value for money in the many public services we do want, and at resisting demands for those extensions of state services which we cannot afford. The Bank needs to concentrate on its prime aim of keeping inflation down to 2%. Both need to sharpen their models and forecasting abilities, as in recent years they have given bad policy advice based on worse numbers.
The Treasury/OBR overstated the central government deficit by £121 bn last year. The very high number was used by Mr Sunak to justify unhelpful tax rises we did not need. Watching their model and forecasts over the years it has always had a tendency to understate revenues in an upswing and overstate them in a downswing, allied with an inability to see turning points in good time. They also do not credit revenue forecasts for some of the taxes with sufficient Laffer effect when rates are lowered, inducing more taxable activity. How can a Chancellor make good decisions when revenue can be so wrongly forecast from existing taxes? They need to amend their models to recognise the sensitivity of revenues to rates of growth and to allow that some taxes provide more revenue at lower rates.
The Treasury was at its worst over social care. It needed to make the case that the state cannot afford to take on all the costs of residential stays for elderly people who can afford to pay for them out of their savings or money released from selling their old home they no longer need or use. That has been our system for many years. Of course all healthcare is and should be free, but board and lodging is for most people with means a cost on their own resources. Instead the Treasury reached a compromise which did not guarantee to protect the full inheritance for the children whilst entailing extra costs for taxpayers which led to the hated NI rise and social care tax. These were also insufficient to pay for all the potential liabilities being unleashed.
The Bank was far too optimistic about inflation. For much of 2021 as it was busy creating £150bn more to spend on depressing interest rates on bonds the Bank assured us inflation would stay within the 2% target. Then as the year wore on it said any uptick would be transitory. As inflation prepared to hit 10% or five times target this year the Bank told us this was because of the unexpected Ukraine war hitting energy prices. So why then was inflation already at 5.5% or 2.75 times target before the war broke out? The Bank needs to take an interest in rates of change in money and credit. It does not believe that creating more money leads to more inflation, pointing out velocity of circulation or how frequently the stock of money is used can change as well. It should nonetheless be required to tell us if money and credit is growing quickly and provide a commentary if they think this is not inflationary to avoid them making the same mistake again.
Which brings us to the question what should be the controls? There are currently three. There is the inflation control. This is crucial and needs to be better enforced. The government needs to adopt it as well as the Bank. As the government spends so much in the economy it needs to take the impact on inflation into account in all its actions. There is the target to keep interest charges down as a percentage of GDP or public spending. We need this, which should be based on the cash cost of interest payments made regularly to service the bonds. It should not include the extra eventual repayments on index linked bonds which will in practice just be rolled over , nor should there be any credits for the big devaluation of repayments of nominal bonds brought on by the current high levels of inflation . Cash is what matters. There is then the Maastricht left over, debt as a percentage of GDP. This leads to bizarre decisions. As it relates to later years the figures will doubtless be well out given the poor forecasting record. Instead of this the tough inflation requirement which will constrain public spending and borrowing should be complemented by a growth target. I think 2% would be stretching compared to where we currently are, though this government has gone for 2.5%.
What the PM and Chancellor seemed to be saying was they wanted to break out of the debilitating cycle of low growth brought on by high taxes, heavy regulation and an anti enterprise culture. The world does not owe us a living and finally last year the proponents of the Orthodoxy discovered their luck had run out in simply printing more money and keeping interest rates too low. We certainly need a new orthodoxy to replace that and to get on top of the inflation it has delivered. Growth is the way out. Growth does need lower tax rates, more investment, and a stronger spirit of enterprise. It also needs more control over spending, whilst ensuring great quality core services like health and education.
The Bank of England fights itself
The Bank of England has two major committees. The Monetary Policy Committee is currently wanting interest rates to climb ever higher and is willing to see mortgage and other longer term rates of interest hiked as well. They regret the big inflation that has taken place, though they blame the European war rather than their own ultra low rates and bond buying in 2021. They forget that inflation was already at 5.5% before the invasion started, 175% above target. They want to start selling the large portfolio of bonds they bought up over the last decade to take big losses on the bonds and drive interest rates higher.
The Financial Policy Committee is responsible for orderly markets and avoiding financial crises. They have had to intervene in the last two weeks to temporarily reverse the MPC’s policy of selling bonds and hiking rates. They have warned that rates have risen too far too fats and bonds have been too depressed. This has led to issues for some pension funds and other owners of government bonds that has worried them .
This big split has led to some announcements that seem contradictory. We are told the MPC has great resolve to make money dearer to get rid of inflation, and that the FPC needs rates lower to cut the losses on bonds to ensure stability. In 2021 the Bank was united in wanting rates as low as possible and bond prices as high as possible. In 2021 for a time the Bank was united in wanting to correct its 2021 errors by higher rates and ending bond purchases. More recently we have had the announcement of bond sales, promptly followed by the announcement of bond buying, to be followed by possible bond sales shortly afterwards. No wonder the market is disturbed.
We need stability of policy and clear signalling of intentions. Why not say the Bank has no plans to sell any bonds all the time they are this depressed? They should give early warning of any intent to sell should bonds rise to a more acceptable level. They could do what Japan does and give indications of what they think a sensible level of 10 year interest rates would be. As the Bank owns around one third of all the gilts and is such a major player they can have great influence over the interest rates and bond prices. They need to use this influence for the Goldilocks rate – the rate that brings inflation down without causing a panic or deep recession.