Author: johnredwood

There has been a lot of nonsense talked about budgets for the next five years. The Conservatives have set out their plans in the last 2015 Budget book from the Treasury. Few seem to have read it, so here is a reminder.
The aim is to eliminate the budget deficit. Spending will rise from £737 billion (£11,497 per person) to £797 billion (£12,434 per person) , an increase of £60 billion. Taxes will rise from £602 billion (£9391 per person) to £746 billion (£11,638 per person). This will more than remove the deficit after other income is taken into account. The rise in tax revenue comes from growth in the economy, not from higher tax rates.

Spending is effectively frozen for the first couple of years. The rate of cash increase should keep up with pay, prices, and productivity growth, given the current low level of inflation. There is no need for there to be a real terms cut, unless inflation takes off. This allows for the extra £8 billion for NHS spending.
Revenue will grow well assuming as the Treasury does that the economy continues to grow faster than 2% per annum.

So we can sum up the last five years and the Conservative plans for the next five years in two simple rounded figures – in each of the 2 Parliaments, spending goes up by one thousand pounds per per person,and tax revenue goes up by two thousand pounds per person, eliminating the need to borrow any more.

There are cries today from the left in the press and media that by publishing a Manifesto for England the Conservatives are fuelling English nationalism and dividing the UK.

What nonsense.

All main parties publish Manifestos for Scotland – why don’t those same commentators and interviewers complain this fuels Scottish nationalism and splits the country? Maybe because it doesn’t.

It is also bizarre that Labour has spent most of the General Election just talking about the NHS in England, ignoring their old Scottish voting heartlands.

In 2009-10, Labour’s last year, the state spent £669bn and collected just £479 billion in taxes. The deficit (after allowing for other income) was more than £150 billion. That represents spending of £10,437 for every man, woman and child in the country, average borrowing per person of £2340 in a single year and average tax per person of £7472. These figures are averages including children.

In 2014-15, the Coalition’s last year, total spending reached £737.1bn, total taxes £602.4bn and borrowing was down to £87.3bn. That is £11,497 of spending per person, £9,391 of taxes per person, and £1362 of additional borrowing per person.

How does that compare with plan? The spending is exactly as forecast in 2010. The tax revenue is £54 billion less than forecast, so the borrowing is up on original forecast.

How does 2015 compare with 2010? Spending is up by £68 billion or £1060 per person, tax is up by £122.7bn, or £1914 per person, and the deficit is down by £63 billion or just under £1000 per person.

All who wish to debate the UK economy and austerity should start by examining these figures. The official statistics show us that real public expenditure rose a bit under the Coalition. Over the last five years public spending has made a small positive contribution to economic growth and output. It has not reduced or slowed our economy as some have argued.Welfare spending has risen, despite a fall in unemployment, mainly owing to upratings of benefits.

The main tax rise has come from the increased rate of VAT and from increased transactions in the economy boosting VAT receipts more. Income tax revenue is only slightly up, as natural gains from more output have been reduced by taking 2.5 million people out of tax altogether and by the 50% rate in place for part of the period.Over the five years more than an extra £500 billion or £7800 per person was borrowed. It is difficult to believe the state could have borrowed much more without triggering higher interest rates and a loss of confidence in financial management.

Happy St George’s day. England awakes.
Just the day for a Manifesto for England. Which party or parties do you think will produce one?
The emphasis in this election on the issues of Scotland should make us ask what is on offer for England, on this day of all days.
The media decided to give the SNP star billing in the tv debates. The Scottish voters have decided to propel the SNP to new highs in the polls, making them of more interest to the commentators. The main parties left unfinished business from the last Parliament, to transfer new major powers to the Scottish Parliament from Westminster.
Only the Conservative party saw this also meant we have now to tackle the problem of England. Labour and the Lib Dems have contented themselves with saying they will look into it in the next Parliament. Their lack of enthusiasm for the task comes through in their limp and feeble proposals, and in their belief that somehow a bit more devolution to Councils can answer the problem. It most certainly cannot.
The minimum England needs is the same rights to settle matters for our country that Scotland will achieve through the new devolution Act planned for the first year of the new Parliament. In some cases it will be England, Wales and Northern Ireland deciding things, in other cases just England, depending on the degree of devolution elsewhere.
Today I repeat my campaign for EVEN – English votes for English needs. If Scotland decides her own Income Tax, so must England. If Scotland decides her own local government settlement – within the bloc totals – so must England settle hers. If Scotland can legislate for herself without England, then so should England be able to legislate for herself.
The UK is a country which believes in fairness. Today of all days we should seek fairness for England.

There is a deafening silence in the Lib Dem and Labour manifestos about the need for a new relationship with the emerging political and monetary union on the continent. It is surpassed by their arrogance in seeking to deny us an In/Out referendum on whether we want to stay in the EU. They apparently know best. They shout at us that we must stay in, without ever examining the options for a new relationship based on trade and co-operation outside the federal treaties. They appear not to understand the dangers of our present course, accepting more and more rules, laws and invoices needed for a political and monetary union to which we do not fully belong.

We need to ask why do these parties and people think they are right this time, when they have been so wrong in the past? Many of them who now just assert we have to stay in come what may, urged us to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism. I remember how they disagreed with me and the few of us who opposed it, how they briefed against us and claimed we did not understand the stability and growth that membership of the ERM would bring. Instead, as we forecast, it brought us boom and bust. First it brought us too much credit and money, then it brought a sterling crisis leading to our forced exit. It gave us a nasty recession based on interest rates which were far too high for UK needs, as the authorities slavishly tried to follow the European model.

Learning nothing from this bitter experience, many of these same people then urged us to enter the Euro. I and others fought a more successful battle to stop that. Had we been in the Euro in 2008 I suspect the banking crash would have forced a UK exit, as I doubt Germany and others would have wanted to stand behind our weakened large banks in the way the Bank of England and UK government did.

Now these same parties assert we have to stay in the EU to be able to trade with them. Why? Doesn’t the rest of the world trade happily with the EU without joining? Hasn’t the German government already said it would need a free trade agreement with the UK if we left, as Germany sells us so much more than we sell to Germany?

It is high time these luminaries of the left who are in love with our current EU membership had to answer some tougher questions. Why do they accept dear energy, a central EU policy? It means less industry and fewer jobs in manufacturing, it means more fuel poverty. Why do they put up with it?

Why do they put up with the economic policies of the Euro and the wider EU, which generate unacceptably high levels of unemployment in many Euro countries?

Why do they accept the EU policy of controlling government deficits to a maximum of 3% of GDP per annum, when at home they are always urging larger deficits?

Why do they endorse policies which entail massive cuts in public spending in countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, whilst resisting any cut at home?

We need a new relationship. It needs to be one that gives us more freedom to govern ourselves, and allows the Euro area to complete its union without the UK slowing it down or making it more difficult. If one cannot be negotiated, then the British people need the opportunity to vote out of what we have at the moment, as it is far from ideal. Whatever the negotiation brings, the people should decide. Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP are united in wanting to deny the British people the choice. If they do not trust the people, why should the people trust them?