John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) about page 19 and that is the main reason I have entered this debate. It is an unfair exposition on the opportunities and risks linked to our membership of the European Union and I do not think it accurately reflects what the OBR has been saying. I am pleased that the OBR has now spoken for itself and put on the record the important point that it does not believe that in the five-year forecast period, were we to leave, there would be a decline in economic output or activity. Like many forecasters, the OBR believes that the net impact would be quite small. Of course, in line with others it has said that there could be volatility in currency and asset price markets. All I would add is that there has been massive volatility in those markets in the years we have been a member of the EU, so it would be somewhat outrageous to claim that that would suddenly stop were we to leave the EU, but I cannot see that it is a particularly damning point.

My hon. Friend has gone on at some profound length about what is wrong with page 19. I hope Ministers will look again and realise that it is not a fair exposition of the OBR’s position. Linking the OBR’s position with Christine Lagarde’s comment, which is obviously a comment made for the “stay inside” campaign trail rather than for normal commentary purposes, gives a misleading impression.

I wish to make some more fundamental points about the figures and the document before us this evening. Let us start with why we are doing this at all. It is a completely pointless exercise, but it is legally required by the treaty and the framework of law under which we live. It is a great pity that in the renegotiation this, along with dozens of other things, was not sorted out because if, as the Minister says, the Government can ignore the advice and the policy laid down by the European Union to control the deficit and get the debt down, what is the point of the Government having to table 300 pages of carefully selected documentation, go through the surveillance procedure, on some occasions receive a report saying that their policy is not good enough or they are not converging in the way that the European Union wishes, and the Government then saying, “Well, fortunately, there is no penalty on us so we will ignore that”?

It is strange to belong to a club, accept the rules and then, when we do not like the rules, say, “Of course, we didn’t really want any of that and fortunately we have been opted out of the penalty bit of it.” It is a strange exercise. I suspect that the official machine of the Government, which goes on whoever is in office, is quite guided by all this. There is probably a wish on the part of officials to get the British Government policy and the figures closer to the convergence requirements. It is high time the European Union itself had an honest debate about the most pressing and most difficult target it has set—the target that all member states should keep their stock of debt to 60% of their national income.

Practically every member state is way above that, and some of them violate the target by having more than double the level set down by the European Union. Why does that body think it is sensible to persevere with a target that none of the member states wish to keep and none of them are trying to reach?

George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP): May I add that the rule that sets the 60% target also states that member states in breach must have a rectification programme and bring their debt level, whatever it is, down by five percentage points a year, which this Government have significantly failed to do and significantly will fail to do for a long, long time?

John Redwood: All the Governments are failing to do that, and it is even more pressing and difficult for a country such as Greece, where the penalties do apply because it is in the euro scheme. Despite all the best efforts of the European leadership, the European Central Bank and others, and very cruel and difficult expenditure cuts that Members in this House would not have accepted for the United Kingdom, Greece is still miles off getting anywhere near the stock-of-debt target and it has struggled until recently to get down to the deficit target.

We need to ask fundamental questions of our European partners about why we go through this routine and what malign influence it has on some economies and some economic performances around the European Union, which should be a matter of common concern all the time we remain in that body. The Minister says this is not a new exercise and it is not much of a burden on the British state; it is just one of those things, and we send in figures that we produce for other purposes. That is not quite true. The introduction to the document clearly has to be written, the selection has to be made, it is clear throughout the document that it is written for domestic purposes and for the purpose of forwarding it to the European Union, and we try to produce figures that we would not otherwise produce in order to conform with the workings of the European Union.

Next, I would like to highlight the figure for the convergence criteria and the so-called treaty deficit on page 186 of the report. That shows that in 2016-17, if all goes well and these figures work out, for the first time in many years we will get below the 3% target to 2.9%. That makes my point: we would not have to calculate that treaty deficit, think that it was significant or use it as part of the guidance for the British economy if we were not signed up to this surveillance and management system within the European Union. The Minister has to bear it in mind that there is actually some subtle guidance in the European policy. I think that many of my constituents would find it quite surprising that we have to table 300 pages of detailed financial and economic information in order to comply, and that that is then put through a scrutiny and surveillance process.

The next figure that I would like to highlight is on page 156, which shows how much in “expenditure transfers” we have to make to the European Union institutions—in other words, how much money we send that we do not get back. We see that the November forecast for 2016-17 was £10.7 billion, which is a very considerable sum, and that the March forecast, just four months later, has gone up to £11.8 billion. Between the autumn statement and the current Budget there is an increase of £1.1 billion in next year’s expenditure transfers to the EU institutions.

That figure of £1.1 billion is very close to the figure that the Government had pencilled in for disability cuts. I do not know about you, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I would rather not have the disability cuts and not pay £1.1 billion extra to the European Union. Why can we not make those kinds of choices? The reason, of course, is that we are signed up to membership of an organisation that thinks it knows better than we do how to spend our own money. I think that people in the United Kingdom are getting very frustrated at being told that we have to be very careful about our priorities, only to discover, if they get guidance from these complex figures, that the European Union can take £1.1 billion extra off us for next year without a by-your-leave. That leaves us struggling to find that money when we try to make the Budget add up, ending up with options and choices that I am sure Ministers did not really want to make, and which Parliament, in its wisdom, has decided should not be made.

I draw the House’s attention to some very important figures on page 205 that the Government are sending to our European partners and masters about projected net migration into the United Kingdom. I was very happy to campaign with my right hon. and hon. Friends at the previous general election on a sensible and sensitive policy of controlled migration, wishing to get it down to the tens of thousands by the end of the Parliament. It was a very popular policy, because I think that people liked the idea that there would be a fair system offering sensible rules so that people could understand it before deciding whether or not to come to our country. Interestingly, the forecast that we are sending to the European Union shows that the level of migration will stay much higher than the Government’s target—it shows 256,000 in 2016, declining to 185,000 in 2021. There is also a further projection in which net migration stays considerably higher, actually above 250,000 in every year.

I think that matters, because the Government’s intentions are very clear: they would like to get net migration well below these forecast figures. Why, then, is the forecast so high? I think that it is very simple: the forecast is that high because the European continental economies, particularly in the south of our continent, are performing very badly and have created mass unemployment on an extremely worrying scale, so the UK, which has a more successful economic policy that is generating a lot of jobs, is acting as a magnet for people who are otherwise without hope of employment.

That policy is making it very difficult for the United Kingdom Government to hit their very popular target on migration. I hope that when this document is submitted Ministers will follow it up by pointing that out to the European Union and saying that they have a solemn promise to keep to the United Kingdom electors, who helped elect them to government, and that this set of EU policies, creating joblessness and therefore triggering a lot of foot-loose migration around the European Union, is making it very difficult to honour that promise.

It also leads us to worry about the quality of some of these forecasts, because I am sure that the Government wish to get the level down, but there is a great danger that the variant of a much higher level has been put in, because actually that is what they are afraid will happen. I hope the Minister will consider that when he replies and that if we are going to go through the process of submitting our homework on economic matters to the European Union to be marked—by sending it 300 pages of figures—we will also say to it, “You are making it impossible for us to meet our legitimate wish to create more jobs to mop up unemployment in our country and to get wages up, as we would like to, because your failing economic policies in many parts of the euro area are bringing a number of migrants into our country that makes it impossible for us to meet our targets.”

Those are just a few brief comments on an extremely complex set of documents and numbers, which show that, while we stay in this body, we need to engage much more and to get some change so that there is honesty in the targeting and an understanding of the damage that some of the targets and policies are creating. However, it will not be a surprise to hon. Members to learn that I think that the simplest thing would be for us to leave the European Union so that this is the last one of these documents we ever have to produce. We can then take control of our own money, banish austerity, spend the £10 billion on things that we want and leave the European Union free to get on with its political union, which is clearly what it will need to do to try to deal with the mass unemployment, the lack of cash transfers and the inadequacy of its regional policies.

I hope tonight’s debate will be of use to the general public and that they will understand that we can take back control, spend our own money, and have prosperity, not austerity. That is what we will get if we leave the European Union.

Yesterday there was a debate on the UK’s report of its public finances to the EU. Under the EU Treaties the UK has to submit its budgets to the EU, and they examine and comment on our economic management. Under the Treaty the UK is meant to keep its deficit to less than 3% of GDP. The figures sent in this year show the UK hitting that target for the first time since the crisis in 2008-9

Being out of the Euro the EU cannot fine the UK for failing to comply, but the EU does apply moral pressure and will comment on the UK’s financial situation if it wishes. As the government has been seeking to reduce the deficit anyway there has not been tension, but if a government had been elected that wanted to keep the deficit well above Treaty levels there could have been more public tensions.

The UK government felt it had to send a 300 page document to the EU to meet the requirements of the Treaty. This takes the form of sending the relevant parts of the Budget reports, along with a special preface to the figures. The document reproduces some of the interesting materials of the UK publication, including the latest OBR forecasts of population change. Their central forecast assumes net migration of 329,000 in 2025 and 256,000 in 2016, declining to 185,000 in 2021. This is well above the government’s own target for reduced numbers, and of course is based on the assumption of continuing EU membership. They also run a higher migration forecast where it stays above 250,000 for the next five years.

I raised with the Minister several issues. First, I asked why the UK has to go through this process. As the UK has failed to hit the deficit target for an extended period of years, wouldn’t it be better to exempt the UK from this whole process? Clearly our controlling our deficit is not important to the others in the way it is crucial if you belong to the same currency as the neighbours. Shouldn’t the UK’s so called “special status” recognise this?

Second, I raised the issue of population forecasts. What action is the government taking to prove these forecasts wrong, given the stated policy objective to get net migration down to the tens of thousands.

Third, I asked about the increase in expenditure transfers to the EU institutions, where the forecast for 2016-17 has been increased from £10.7bn in November to £11.8bn this March. This increase of £1.1bn is unhelpful, and just happens to be similar to the amount of the annual savings being sought in disability payments in the original budget.

Conservatives for Britain continues the serialisation of its Brexit Manifesto by showing how a future Conservative government could use the £10bn we send to the EU which we don’t get back to end austerity.

The UK currently hands over £19 billion to the EU every year. We get £9 billion back in services and the rebate which means when we Vote Leave we will be able to guarantee all the funding to farmers, universities and regional grants that currently come from the EU and still have £10 billion more to spend on our priorities like the NHS.

The Conservatives for Britain spending suggestions for the first post-Brexit budget include:

£1.1 billion for disability benefits to avoid controversial cuts
£800 million to train an extra 60,000 nurses a year to deal with shortages and excess agency staff
£250 million a year to provide an additional 10,000 doctors a year to deal with doctor shortages and to staff the seven day NHS well
£750 million a year on social care to offering better support for people in their own homes, and for more care home and respite care places.
£200 million to cancel hospital car parking charges
£400 million for dearer medical treatments not currently licensed by NICE, for example cancer treatments such as Proton Beam therapy and Meningitis vaccines
£1.9 billion to abolish VAT on domestic energy, energy saving materials, on converting existing dwellings and on carry cots, children’s car seats and safety seats
£1.5 billion to keep Council Tax down by offering councils the money to pay for a discount on bills they issue
£900 million to remove Stamp Duty on the £125,000 to £250,000 band of home purchase
£500 million should be allocated to a local road fund to support local schemes to improve junction safety and flows, and to provide additional capacity and bypasses on busy roads in congested areas

Commenting, John Redwood said:

‘The UK currently hands over £19 billion to the EU every year. That’s £350 million a week. If we Vote Leave we will be able to spend our money on our priorities like the NHS. We would have an extra £10 billion to spend allowing us to recruit thousands of new nurses and doctors.

‘We would be able to provide the latest cancer treatments that the NHS currently can not afford and provide extra money for people who are frail and need long term care. We would no longer need to make controversial cuts to disability benefits and we could scrap the tampon tax and the EU’s VAT increases on green goods like solar panels.

‘Instead of sending billions abroad each year we should spend that money on improving our NHS and helping families by cutting unfair EU taxes. That’s why the safer choice in this referendum is to Vote Leave.’

Section-3-Budget

Yesterday I was told that VAT on energy saving materials is not going up in the budget. I found that surprising, as I believed the consultation document HMRC (part of the Treasury)  put out on 9 December 2015. It stated clearly

“In line with the CJEU’s judgement, the government intends to amend the relevant legislation in the Finance Bill 2016.” “The purpose of this consultation is to receive comments as to whether or not the proposed legislation achieves its objective…”

The Consultation document made clear that the lower 5% rate of VAT on solar panels, water turbines and wind turbines would be replaced with a 20% rate. It also showed that in certain cases installations will in future only attract the lower rate on all energy saving materials if they are to “people living in dwellings who have a social need (qualifying persons) “etc  Other installations in residential dwellings will depend on the cost of installation relative to the energy saving materials. The Treasury estimated this as being a £65 m tax hike in a full year.

The truth is the UK lost its case in the European Court last summer. The European Commission took the UK to court, demanding that we raise VAT on energy saving materials in various cases. The Court decided clearly in favour of the Commission.  The Court said

 

“the United Kingdom of GB and NI has failed to fulfil its obligations under Article 98 of the VAT Directive , read in conjunction with Annex III thereto”.

 

In view of the fact that VAT is an EU tax, all the time the UK is in the EU it has to comply with EU law. The ECJ decides this, not the UK, and has recently decided the UK has to raise VAT on energy saving materials. The HMRC consultation is quite clear about what has to be done. It is not a consultation on whether we should do it or not, just a technical consultation on whether their latest proposals will ensure the UK complies. So why are some now  told the Finance Bill will not contain a VAT rise on energy saving materials?

 

The government seems to think it will get some new flexibility over VAT. This would require a new VAT policy from the Commission and changes to EU law. In the meantime the UK has  broken the current EU law and has been ordered by the European Court to change our law instead. When is this legal tangle going to be sorted out? Is the EU really going to change its law In the way we want? If so, how and when? Are we going to be fined for non compliance? Will we see the new draft law before the referendum?

“

Before the last election Mr Cameron was attentive and available to MPs who wanted a change of course. He was persuaded by some of us to veto the Fiscal treaty, to offer a referendum and to seek to cut the EU budget, for example. Although he did not have a fully representative number of Eurosceptic Ministers in the government, he did make up for that to some extent by meeting with us and seeking to understand our concerns. We were delighted with the offer of a referendum, and redoubled our efforts to achieve a Conservative government on the strength of it.

Since the election Mr Cameron has been  spending much more  time with other EU leaders than with Eurosceptic backbenchers. Maybe that goes with the job. Maybe it was necessary to undertake a renegotiation. In part it is because the EU has entered another one of its phases of permanent crisis, with the great migration testing the borderless empire to destruction of the policy whilst the financial tensions of the Euro continue to play in many parts of the currency zone. He was of course abroad when the IDS problem blew up, showing again the difficulty  of EU entanglements to domestic politics, taking a PM away from crucial domestic matters when it is important to be available in person.

Whilst this may all be an understandable use of Prime Ministerial time, the danger is he loses sufficient contact and understanding with his own party, the very force that keeps him in office. Ending up on the opposite side to a majority of his party members and to around half his Parliamentary party on the EU issue despite indicating clearly he would like them to side with him creates new issues in party management that need careful and urgent attention. If he retains his understanding  of the merits of the Eurosceptic case and can sympathise with what we are doing it can be handled. If he gets to the point where he has forgotten all the reservations he has expressed in the past about the EU, and the apparent narrow call he made to recommend staying in, then he will find it more difficult to put the party back as one after the result of the vote. Some of us were proud to help with the Bloomberg speech, and many were pleased with its clear message that democratic accountability had to rest in the UK from the people to their Parliament. That is what we are trying to restore by proposing we leave the EU.

So what needs the Prime Minister to do to unite his party? He needs first of all to demonstrate that Ministerial jobs are as open to pro Leave people as to Remain people – I speak for many talented colleagues who wish us to leave, not for myself. The replacement of Iain Duncan Smith with a Remain person is not a good first step. If Leave wins then of course all the crucial roles that are EU facing and are part of the negotiation for exit need to  be taken by people who believe in exit. That modest minority who wished to remain and have been long term believers in the project also deserve their share of positions, but those who have voted Remain with little conviction do not need a representative quota given the views of the party but should be judged solely on their Ministerial merits. Were Remain to win the half of the Parliamentary party that wants out will be  bitterly disappointed as they are believers and representatives of much of the party membership , so will need to be involved in the government that follows. Again some of them could  be useful in EU facing roles to try to prevent the EU using their win in our vote to brush the UK’s continuing legitimate concerns aside.

He also needs to nuance his comments in the referendum campaign. He speaks as if the only thing that matters to him is winning, turning a deaf ear to the legitimate  views of the other side. That is fine for a partisan fighting a  normal election, as such  partisans don’t win the right to stay in office if they lose. As he wishes to remain  Prime Minister, he has to remember that the Prime Minister has to speak as best he can for the whole nation. As party leader he has to speak for the majority of his party. If he spends the next few weeks denying, criticising and brushing aside everything we believe in about the fundamentals of our democracy and our nation, it will  be that much more difficult for him to put it all together again afterwards.

I respect those on the other side of the EU debate who genuinely want a United Europe, with full banking, monetary, economic and political union as the leaders of the EU want. I disagree with them, but understand their vision. I find it  very difficult to understand people who argue with us about how imperfect the EU is, and then insist we stay in it for fear of them trying to  be nasty to us if we leave. The UK has no tradition of giving in to bullies. It is  bizarre that the main view that many pro EU people have in the UK is that our partners are nasty. Fortunately they would not be powerful enough to hurt us.

I drew attention to the fact that the official minutes of the 7 March EU/Turkey Agreement made clear that all member states need to lift visa restrictions on Turkey by June this year. The UK government keeps saying this does not apply to the UK.  I suggested they have the minutes amended in that case.

 

Far from doing so, the minutes of the European Council held 17-18 March  reconfirmed the minutes of the 7 March “Following the decisions of the Heads of State of government of 7 March”  the European Council “calls for the full implementation of the EU-Turkey statement”.  So if we assume the UK is not actually going to lift visa restrictions we are left wondering why official statements of the Heads of State and government which we are asked to rely on in other contexts are wrong on this matter. We also need to remember how assurances that the UK would not have to bail out Euro countries were swept aside when it came to a new loan for Greece.

There can be no opt out for the UK when it comes to possible Turkish membership of the EU. There we are told clearly in the minutes of the Council meeting that ” the EU and Turkey reconfirmed their commitment to re energise the accession process” for Turkey to become a full member.

Visa liberalisation even if confined to the continent means many more people having easy access to the EU and possibly establishing citizenship and free movement rights to the UK  as well as the rest of the EU. Full membership of course brings complete freedom of movement. In view of the pressure on us already from the many people in the rest of the EU who want to work and live here, we do need to consider this Turkish issue more seriously. One of the failings of William Hague’s Referendum Act was it does not give the UK people a vote on new members joining the EU, though they can represent a big change to the EU and to our obligations as. Result.

Since 2010 the government has been keen to reduce inequality and to promote more work and better paid jobs for the unemployed and the lower paid. It has pursued a policy of taking more and more low earners out of income tax altogether. It has removed Stamp Duty for lower priced properties and cut the tax on anything under £1 million. It has provided savings schemes which offer incentive and top up to savers in modest financial circumstances. It has raised the Minimum Wage and provided pension saving plans for the lower paid.

The Equality Trust concludes that “Compared to other OECD countries the UK has a relatively equal distribution of wealth”. Whilst drawing attention to above average income inequality, the figures show that income inequality has fallen since 2010. The Gini coefficient of inequality has fallen from 36 to 34. The main purpose of the welfare reforms is to make working more worthwhile, and to help more people into employment. The economy has generated a large number of new jobs since 2010, and this has helped  bring down unemployment and tackle inequality. Tax on the richest has risen.

Concentrating on educational reform is the  best way of reducing inequality in the longer term. Freezing fuel duty has helped all those who need to travel to work by car, and all who need vehicles for their work.

John Redwood: I welcome the Bill because it attempts to deal with some of the damage that has accumulated in recent years as a result of the policies of the Labour Government, who neglected the need for more energy and security of supply, and some of the European Union’s interventions.

I welcome the cross-party attempts to breathe some life into the North sea industry, which has been crucial over many years. As many have pointed out, it is going through a troubled time and anything that can be done by the Oil and Gas Authority or directly by the Government is to be welcomed. For example, now is a good time to remove the petroleum revenue tax, which is a rather silly, unpleasant tax introduced by the Labour party for internal political reasons near the beginning of activities in the North sea. It yields no revenue at the moment, so it would be a good time to get rid of it to show that we want normal profit and revenue taxes, not super-taxes, on North sea activities when the good times return. I hope that the Chancellor will bear in mind the needs of the industry in his forthcoming Budget, because things could be done on tax to promote more investment against the background of a weak oil price, which is no great incentive for making new things happen.

I hope that the Bill will contribute towards taking security of supply seriously. The Government regularly tell us that they want our country to be secure—an aim that I hope is shared across the Chamber. An important way for a country to become more secure is through controlling its own energy resources. The United Kingdom is a relatively privileged country geographically, because it has substantial reserves of oil, gas and coal. We have recently discovered the likelihood of new gas reserves onshore, which should be available to exploit sensibly. We also have plenty of water around that allows us to have hydro-type renewables, which are genuinely renewable and continuously available, unlike the unreliable wind, about which we had a good debate earlier. As the Government go about implementing the Bill, I trust that they will have security of supply at the forefront of their mind.

George Kerevan (East Lothian) (SNP): Where does the security of supply lie in the Prime Minister flying to Paris to ask the French President to fund a nuclear power station that will supply 7% of our electricity, when France clearly will not do so?

John Redwood: That must be worked out between the contracting parties. I have not been urging them to do that, but I wish them well in whatever negotiations are under way. I accept that if they can find a way of producing relatively sensibly priced power on a continuous basis from a nuclear power station, that has all sorts of advantages for the security of supply. I assume that they will ensure that all the technology and the ability to control, repair and maintain the station will rest in the United Kingdom, because we can have true security only if we control the technology and have the industrial resources to be able to build and mend the facility being created. We must also bear that in mind for weapons procurement. If we want a secure country, we need an industry that can support it and is capable in adversity of seeing us through. We cannot rely on imports for everything, and we are already relying too much on imports in the crucial area of energy, so I hope the Bill will help us to stop thinking that we can automatically rely on French electricity and Russian gas indirectly through the European system.

George Kerevan: On that point, after France, the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems bent on handing over the entire British nuclear industry to China.

John Redwood: I trust not. I have not seen all the documents, but I am sure that we will see more of the detail in due course as and when more decisions are taken. If my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is negotiating such a deal, I urge him to ensure that we have control of and an understanding of the technology. I see from the nods from my Front-Bench team that that is exactly what they have in mind. A country does not have secure power if it is dependent on those abroad to maintain a power station and does not understand how to mend it, improve it or make it function at a crucial moment. Of course we need to probe to make sure that the Government are doing the right thing, but we get that security only if we control the technology.
Let me return to the point about security vis-à-vis imports and our own capability. We are becoming too dependent on imported power, and we have to remember that if our imports are to come from the European continent, that area is short of energy in general, and it has a policy to make energy scarce and very expensive. The west of the continent does not get on well with Mr Putin, yet indirectly it relies on his gas, and that is not a strong strategic position to be in. I want our country not to be in any way beholden indirectly to Putin’s gas or to the general network on the continent, which is clearly weakened by the necessity to have Russian supplies in the eastern part of the system. The UK, as an island nation, with access to such riches both onshore and offshore, and with the ability to generate more genuine renewables that are continuously available, should be able to have a secure supply and sufficient capacity in reserve when need arises.

We wish to be a greater industrial power than we are. We are the fifth largest economy in the world but we are very dependent on a very big service sector and our industrial sector has, under Governments of all persuasions in the past 30 years, shrunk as a proportion of it. We still have some great companies and some great technology but we need more of them and we need to broaden the industrial base. In order to have that capability in Britain, so that we can make our own power stations, generators and engines, we need to make sure that we have sufficient and cheap energy to fuel those factories, forges, facilities and blast furnaces.

We meet tonight against the backdrop of our steel industry gravely at risk. One of the main contributory factors to the risk to our steel industry is scarce and dear energy; there are also chronic problems with steel prices and Chinese competition now, but this began with an energy problem. We cannot hope to be one of the big world forces in energy-intensive industries if we do not have more plentiful energy at cheaper prices.

I wish the Bill and the Secretary of State well. The Government must have as their fundamental aim security of supply, because without secure energy a country is very limited in its foreign policy options and has to tailor its diplomacy accordingly. I see us becoming too dependent. We wish to correct our balance of payments, and getting into energy surplus would not only be a very good contribution to that aim, but would strengthen our diplomatic and political security. As we wish to reindustrialise, we need more and cheaper energy. We are not going to get that on a diet of wind farms and speculative renewable technologies that are not yet available, and are very expensive and difficult to scale up. We can get that affordable energy if we extract the oil, gas and coal, and process it in an environmentally friendly way to the extent that can be achieved, if we have more gas turbine power stations and more reliable baseload power stations. We are going to leave ourselves vulnerable and insecure if we depend on a combination of European imports and too many wind farms. I therefore say: may the OGA do well, may it find ways of bringing on stream the new reserves we are just discovering and may it find ways of extending the lives of the existing fields and of the pools of talent and expertise we have, particularly in Scotland, where we need them still.

I am glad the government is withdrawing its disability payment cuts. I lobbied against them as did other MPs.

I am sad Iain Duncan Smith has had to leave the government, as he is so committed to a better deal for those on benefits.

It also means the loss of one of the major Brexit figures from the government, which makes the Cabinet even less representative of the modern Conservative party

 

 

 

 

 

John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con):
I support the main measures in the Budget, and the thrust of the Budget statement. I strongly welcome the tax reductions. I am very pleased that the Chancellor is making progress in implementing our promises to take more people out of income tax altogether, and to take people out of 40% tax when they are on relatively modest incomes in comparison with the costs of housing and living in many parts of the country. The more progress we can make in that regard, the better.

I am delighted that I, and others, made representations on behalf of the North Sea oil industry, that those representations have been well heard, and that substantial changes have been made. It is important for us to do all that we can to give that industry, which has been hit by the very low oil price, some momentum and some hope for the future. I am also very pleased about the capital gains tax changes, because I have campaigned for them for some time. I think we will find that they bring in more revenue, not less.

It is interesting to read the forecast in the Red Book that, by 2019-20, there will be a substantial increase in revenues from CGT at the lower rate, but there will be a period of no increases for two or three years. I find that a surprising profile, and I think it draws attention to an underlying problem. I do not think that the economic models and the tax forecasting system used by the Office for Budget Responsibility are fit for purpose. The OBR was obviously very wrong about the impact of the reduction in the 50p rate to 45p: there was a big surge in revenues which was not in the original forecast figures.

This is the background against which we meet today. Many of the changes that the Chancellor has had to make are simply a result of the OBR changing its mind over the very short period between the autumn statement and today, and deciding that the economic outlook is not as good as it thought it was at the end of last year. We have to ask why it has reached that conclusion.

John Pugh (Southport) (LD): Does the right hon. Gentleman think that the OBR has been any better at predicting the economy than the Treasury was before?

John Redwood: I do not think that there is very much difference. All economic forecasters experience difficulties in getting their forecasts right, but some of us are more humble about our expectations than these official forecasters. I think that the danger of having an official forecast is that too much credibility is given to it, and big decisions are then made on the back of it. When official forecasters are zinging the forecasts around every three or four months, it becomes difficult for any Chancellor to run a stable medium-term policy involving, for example, important spending items that matter a great deal to our constituents.
I urge the Chancellor to be a little more sceptical about the wisdom and virtue of the OBR forecasts. The one thing of which we can be sure is that, over the period during which we have had the OBR, it has always been wrong, but what is stunning is the degree of the error. The OBR itself kindly points that out to us on page 234 of its very readable book, saying that, on average, it has revised the underlying borrowing forecast by £46 billion for the review period in question on each occasion. Given that the figure is an average, it is clear that the forecast revision has been considerably higher. The OBR tends to make its biggest revisions in autumn statements, but it has given us quite a whopper on this occasion. When a Chancellor must face a £46 billion revision every time he has to do the sums, it makes the task of stable economic management much more difficult. This is one of those instances in which an idea that was intended to produce more stability has proved to be destabilising.

The same can be said, I am afraid, of the current Governor of the Bank of England. The Governor of the Bank of England is meant to provide stability and wisdom, but we have now heard four different mantras from this Governor about when interest rates are going to rise. That is a very important statistic, which informs the forecasts of the OBR.

First of all, the Governor said that interest rates would probably go up when unemployment fell below 7%. When it tumbled rapidly below 7%, the Governor changed his mind. I am glad that he did, but the fact remains that he changed his mind. He then said that when real wages started to go up, interest rates would probably go up as well, and I am pleased to say that almost as soon as he had said it, they started to go up. Then he changed his mind, in that he had apparently not meant what he said.

The Governor then said that the turn of the year, 2015-16, would be a witching hour, when interest rates might have to go up. Well, we roared through the end of the year and the beginning of the new year, and they did not go up. Again, I was pleased about that, because I think it might have been unhelpful if they had. However, that shows that people and institutions who should be good at providing stability can be very destabilising and very misleading, and it is all noise that the Chancellor has to deal with.

The one good thing about all this is that when these ridiculous forecasts are made by the OBR and the Governor of the Bank of England that we would be worse off if we left the European Union, we can completely ignore them. We know that those people are always wrong about the things in which they are meant to specialise, so why should we believe what they say about something that is more important?

Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab): Will the right hon. Gentleman illuminate us on the section of the Chancellor’s speech that dealt with the European Union? Will he share his thoughts with us?

John Redwood: I think that I am doing that now. The Chancellor quoted the OBR, and the one thing that I disagreed with profoundly in a very good Budget was the OBR’s forecast on what would happen with Brexit. [Laughter.] It is not funny. Labour Members might learn something if they listened. They have obviously closed their ears to any idea that an independent Britain could be rich, prosperous and free, but many of us think that we will be more rich, prosperous and free if we leave the EU.

Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP): Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

John Redwood: I want to develop the argument a little more. As has already been pointed out, the forecast contains very worrying figures about the balance of payments deficit. And of course, were we to leave the EU, we would immediately have £10 billion at our disposal that we would no longer have to send abroad to be spent in rich countries on the continent. That is the net amount that goes to the continent. So our balance of payments would immediately improve by £10 billion a year if we did not have to make those contributions.

To cheer up Opposition Members even more, and to get them to change their vote, I can tell them that we and they would have the pleasure of spending £10 billion a year more in our own country—[Laughter.] Why is that funny? Why should not British taxpayers who have to pay £10 billion not have the advantage of spending it on things that they want instead of it being spent on new roads in France or Spain? I think my taxpayers want it to be spent here. That £10 billion a year could more than banish the austerity that Opposition Members claim has done some damage to our country. Looking at the figures, we can see that real public spending has gone up all the time under the coalition and the Conservative Government, but not by as much as it went up under previous Governments. If we had that £10 billion back to spend in the United Kingdom, we would have a better profile on public spending and on tax reductions.

Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con): Can my right hon. Friend be sure that any figure he quotes is accurate, given that he has just rubbished the OBR and the Bank of England? Presumably he has a list of other British institutions to which he would give the same treatment.

John Redwood: But of course. I have checked the Government’s very own net contribution figures, and it is very likely that they have got those figures right, because even the Government can count how much they have spent and how much they have had to give away to the rest of the European Union. That is the damage that is being done.

On the balance of payments, I would urge my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench to do more work on getting the balance of payments deficit down. Obviously, they will not all agree with me about taking the quick easy hit of getting our £10 billion back to make a big reduction in the deficit, but we need to understand that that deficit is entirely the result of an adverse goods trade with the rest of the European Union. We are in profit with the rest of the world and we are in profit in services, but we have a colossal manufacturing deficit with the rest of the EU. Some of that relates to the way in which France and Germany get round the EU rules to make sure that they can buy French or German product, whereas we in Britain apply the EU rules extremely fairly and end up buying a lot of foreign product from the continent.

It is also the case that the very dear energy that European policies require and enforce is doing a lot of damage to our steel industry, our ceramics industry and other high energy-using industries. It is a great tragedy that, despite higher domestic demand for steel, we are still unable always to use British steel in British public sector contracts. Surely we ought to have a fix to create more demand for our own domestic industries.

We also import massive amounts of timber, despite having a big state sector involvement in the timber industry in this country. Why cannot more be done to cut more of the timber we already have as a state resource to meet our domestic demand, along with replanting and extending the planting, given that many people would like more forests? Why cannot we have more managed timber, with the state having an influence over it? We could also do more with the tax system to encourage more private forestry. We have rather good growing conditions here, compared with some of the colder Nordic climates from which we import timber at the moment.

We also import energy, but we have no need to do so. We are an island of coal, oil and gas set in a sea of coal, oil and gas. We also have lots of natural renewables, particularly lots of potential water power. Why cannot we create an energy policy in which we do not need to rely on importing timber from Canada, electricity from France and energy from Norway?

I am pleased that the Budget is starting to tackle the issue of the oil industry offshore through tax changes. We need to do other work on that, and we also need to get on with gas extraction onshore. We will probably find further oil resources when we are prospecting for shale gas in the shale sands. We need to start bridging the gap on energy before it becomes even more damaging to our balance of payments.

Mark Prisk (Hertford and Stortford) (Con): On encouraging greater exports, would my right hon. Friend acknowledge that one of the challenges that small and medium-sized firms face is the availability and pricing of mid-sized capital to enable them to pursue longer-term export plans?

John Redwood: I am not sure that the cost of capital is a problem. The Government have already done certain things to try to deal with that through the investment bank and so forth. It is often the case that medium-sized companies probably need equity investment but are reluctant to give away control. That is a cultural issue that we have to deal with. Certainly for bigger companies there is nothing wrong with the long-term cost of borrowing if they have access to the bond market, because we have exceptionally low interest rates at the moment.

I am all in favour of the Government pressing on with large infrastructure projects if they make economic sense. The main ones that we need to reinforce are broadband and extra energy capacity. We are short not only of affordable energy but of energy of any kind. We do not want our economic recovery—which we have rightly been told is the fastest in the advanced world, on the historical and prospective figures—suddenly to come up against the constraint that there is not enough energy available to fuel the recovery.