Regular readers will know I have been critical of the Bank for its tough squeeze on car loans and mortgages since March 2017. Some of you have written in to support  the Bank, claiming with them that the build up of consumer debt and mortgages  is worrying and they are right to rein it in.

So I was pleased to read the recent speech of the Deputy Governor Broadbent who has offered a more considered position by the Bank of England. They now acknowledge that there has been no worrying increase in consumer debt as reflected in credit card, overdraft and other borrowing. The main increase in consumer borrowing has occurred through an increase in student loans as more people graduate from universities under the loan system. As the Bank recognises, much of this debt will never be repaid, and it is more a state debt than a personal one as repayments are only made above certain income levels. It is more of a graduate tax on success. There has been a more modest rise in car loans, but as the Bank now accepts most of this is a kind of hire contract. There is no risk for the individual who would simply surrender the car. The individual does not own it. The Bank also accepts that the ratios and spread of these car loan hire contracts is sufficiently broad for there to be no great risk to the financing houses responsible.

I hope this more thorough analysis by the Bank will lead to a relaxation of policy on car hire contracts. I hasten to add I have  no personal interest as I do not want one myself. There are however many people who would like to renew their car and buy a more fuel efficient and clean vehicle, currently restrained by the squeeze.

The Bank also points out that mortgage affordability is considerably above the levels that prevailed in the years before the banking crash. Whilst house prices are on average well up and a higher multiple of earnings than in the 1990s, the much lower interest rates means that mortgage outgoings are not up as a proportion of income on normal levels at the end of the last century. Again the Bank rightly confirms my view that there is no excessive mortgage debt problem out there.

Both our housing and our car market have been damaged by high and increased transaction taxes, by changes to other tax arrangements and by a credit squeeze. It is time to relax it a bit. I am glad I can now agree with the Bank’s analysis, which seems thorough and convincing over this issue of debt.

For the Tuesday debate in accordance with the EU Withdrawal Act the government has tabled a neutral motion on our exit from the EU. The motion simply says Parliament has considered the matter of our withdrawal.  Parliament after all has debated little else for the entire last two and a half years. It has also legislated twice to leave the EU on 29 March 2019. As I made clear to the Commons when we passed the EU Withdrawal Notification Act, that was the decision point. Parliament’s wish to send the Article 50 letter should have been the end to the debate on the principle of leaving.

Some in Parliament have now decided they would like to move amendments to the government motion to undermine  the legislation Parliament has put through to allow us to leave. It is true that passing a motion next week cannot of itself change the law, so unless the law is amended we will still leave. Some hope that if Parliament expresses a strong view that it has changed its mind it might get the government to think again. That would  be unwise given the solemn promise made by Parliament and government that we would implement the decision of the referendum.

Some opponents of Brexit have therefore decided they wish to rewrite Parliamentary rules to try to legislate to stop Brexit against the wishes of the government. It has long been the practice agreed by all  parties in government that government has three advantages over any other group in the House in order to allow it to govern. The first is that government leads over the choice of business in the Commons to allow it to get its legislative programme through. It still of course needs  a majority for each proposal and may have to allow extensive debate and disagreement, often resulting in compromises. It would not be easy or orderly for any group of MPs to propose a Bill and then to try to get it through against other groups competing for time and support. All governments have readily made time available for private members bills and for Opposition debates as part of the deal over cross party working.

The second is anything that requires taxes to be raised and public money to be spent should need Parliamentary consent based on a resolution put to the House by a Minister. The government has to take responsibility for the whole budget and needs to keep control of spending as best it can.

The third is where a power to be exercised is a so called prerogative or Crown power the PM and the government act for the Crown or seek the Crown’s assent. Other groups of MPs  cannot claim to act in the name of the Crown nor exercise any such powers. Government Ministers negotiate with foreign governments on behalf of the UK.

The wish of some to legislate to delay or prevent our exit from the EU comes up against all of these issues. The Cooper and Grieve amendments wish to alter the idea of government business motions, asserting that their proposed bills would take precedence over anything the government might wish to do, with guaranteed Parliamentary time. They argue wrongly that their bills do not have any financial implications so they do not need a Money resolution. They ignore the involvement of prerogative powers in negotiating and signing international treaties.

The government’s strongest case in pushing back on these revolutionary constitutional proposals is that clearly any decision to extend our membership of the EU has substantial financial implications. Under the EU Withdrawal Act our payments to the EU cease on March 29 2019. The government has no power to authorise payments for contributions and programmes after that date. The so called £39bn of the Withdrawal Agreement would need  new legislation to authorise it. All payments up to 29 March are legal under the European Communities Act, but this Act ceases to be on our Statute book after March 29th. Staying in for longer would doubtless be expensive and should need a government motion to approve the spending, with  Treasury consent that it is affordable within the revised budget.

The government would also be right to warn that moving over to a new system of choosing how to spend Parliamentary time could make government very difficult. If a government cannot be sure of enough time to try to get its programme through it cannot govern effectively. Any government with a small majority will be especially at a disadvantage. Were this to be established as a new precedent then the next government with a decent majority would presumably legislate to stop Parliament having such extensive rights, and might make things less flexible and friendly to backbenchers and opposition than they are today under a settlement that has lasted for many years.

The government can also point out the EU has not offered us a few months delay on Article 50 and that would require negotiation with the EU over the terms. The EU would wish to negotiate with the government, not with a temporary alliance of MPs.

This week President Macron and Chancellor Merkel signed a Franco German Treaty at Aachen. It sets up a governing committee for a common European army, to  be based on establishing a common culture in the German and French forces and engaging them in more joint operations. There will  be common weapons procurement and an integrated supply industry.

The same Treaty also wishes to erode the distinctions of government and culture in the border areas between the two countries. There will be an overall joint governing structure, encouragement of bilingualism, and joint government programmes.  The Treaty in addition  sets up an economic council of experts to advise on bringing together economic policies. The two countries pledge themselves to even closer governmental working and more convergence of law and action.  France promises to take the common EU line on the Security Council of the UN, and to seek a permanent seat for Germany on that body as well.

They presumably chose Aachen as the resting place of Charlemagne, a great figure in European unification. The Rathaus at Aachen where they met was the setting for the coronation of 31 Holy Roman Emperors, and it houses replicas of the crown jewels of the Emperors. The two leaders wishes to reaffirm their enthusiasm for a political unified Europe.

The Rathaus has also seen other events that remind us of the trials of European history. There was the period of occupation by the French Napoleonic forces, when France tried to unite a large part of Europe by force of arms. There was the 1923 sacking by Rhineland nationalists, and the bombing of the building by the allies seeking to reverse German militarism in the 1940s.

True to form, signing this Treaty to try to unify more, the political forces in France and Germany have included strong criticism from their  oppositions. The German populists are concerned that Germany will be dragged into spending more German money on French economic developments. The French opposition is very concerned about giving Germany a role in the government of French border areas. These are all matters for French and German debate, not for UK opinions.

I highlight this event because during the referendum Leave was told by Remain there was no question of a European army, yet the language of this Treaty develops the idea a long way. It is clear again that the main drivers of European integration do wish to have a joint military capability distinct from NATO. This in turn requires a much higher degree of political integration and joint decision taking.

Good silence from the anti Brexit commentators over recent rises in the pound as we get closer to the date to leave the EU.

They are none too noisy about the latest IMF forecast either where the IMF  think the UK will grow faster than Germany this year.

That’s the magic of Brexit!

The latest employment figures are good. Unemployment has fallen to 4%, with strong jobs growth continuing. Vacancies are also at good levels, implying no immediate fall off in employment in prospect. Average earnings hit £27,500 a year as we go into 2019, with real wages now growing at  around a 1% annual rate.

This means over the two and a half years since we voted to leave,  the economy has continued to generate a lot of extra jobs, bringing unemployment down. Most of these jobs are full time, and many are well paid, boosting average earnings. That is the opposite of the recession allied to big job losses we were told by the Treasury and Remain experts to expect after the referendum decision.

Many in Parliament wish to increase the uncertainties and carry on portraying a gloomy outlook from their own pessimistic imaginations. Many of them now are desperately searching for a delay to Brexit so they can prolong the uncertainty and spend many more months rowing over what kind of Brexit they want or will allow, regardless of the views of the voters and regardless of what the EU might agree to. It is particularly cheering that employment has grown so well recently, when the national conversation has been dominated by gloomy Remain MPs telling us the future is dreadful, and when the chances of us just leaving without signing the Withdrawal Agreement have risen thanks to the huge defeat of the Agreement in the Commons.

It also shows that the authorities attempts to slow and damage the economy with a series of tax attacks on homes and cars, and with the slowing of credit, have not been sufficient to stop overall jobs and wage growth, though they have of course done damage to the targeted sectors.

The French gilets jaune movement has in part been a protest against the attempts of the elite to limit people’s uses of cars and vans. The movement began with demands to cut the taxes on petrol and diesel, and to resist more moves to make motoring ever dearer. Some of the protesters then went on to damage or obscure the cameras checking car speeds on French highways, rapidly taking a majority of them out of use. This followed an unpopular reduction in the speed limit .

The car to many is not merely an important symbol of personal freedom, but a vital means of getting to work, going to the shops, taking children to school and enjoying leisure time away from home. Many people want to learn to drive and acquire a car as soon as they are able, recognising how much more scope they will have to do as they wish in their lives if they have their own transport. The establishments of Europe see the car instead as an enemy of their vision of the future. They impose high taxes to reduce use of vehicles and to price people on lower incomes off the road altogether. They impose tougher regulations to limit the use of certain vehicles in certain places and at certain times. They are now threatening the whole car park of diesel and petrol cars, wanting to push people into owning an electric vehicle or giving up on personal transport altogether. They seem to think people can and should take the bus or train even when they live in rural areas with little or no access to such services.

Of course governments need to impose some rules on car drivers to ensure safer roads. It is sensible to have a testing regime for drivers and vehicles, and sensible to have road markings and road rules to avoid collisions. No-one disagrees with good measures to keep us safe. The problem comes when the rules and requirements multiply to the point where they can be a distraction or a problem for the safe driver, and where the whole exercise is one large attempt to take more money off the motorist with tax placed on tax to drive, own, buy and operate a vehicle.

The intervention in the market by the EU and member state governments to get more people to buy diesel cars worked well, only for the EU then to change its mind and tell us we had been wrong to follow their advice. Now they wish us to believe that if we take on an electric car we will in future be subsidised or taxed a lot less. People are very sceptical, fearing that if electric cars become popular then the subsidies will end and new taxes will be imposed as governments will want to replace the huge lost revenue from taxes on diesel and petrol. They also worry lest some unseen environmental problem with batteries emerges as emission issues arose late in the day with diesels.

In this vexed area of policy the car and van using public see hypocrisy from those who govern them. They seem to have plenty of access to prestigious cars without a thought for the cost as they are provided by the state. If cars are good enough for Mr Macron to get around in, aren’t they also necessary for French men and women as they go about their work?

Let’s countdown to Independence and get ready to celebrate our exit.

There are only 36 days left when Parliament is in session and able to try to mess up or delay our passage to Independence.

Write to your MP today if they are showing signs of wanting to stop Brexit and remind them of their Manifesto promises and the result of the referendum and General Election.

The government should be discussing how we commemorate one of the great days of UK history, the day we restore an independent self governing democracy to these islands.

The government should also be publishing our tariff schedule, getting its Brexit bonus budget ready for March, taking back control of our fishing grounds and setting out a food and farming policy that is good for the UK.

When we joined the EEC there were commemorative stamps and coins. There were more coins for the 25th anniversary of our membership. What should we do for March 29 2019?

Whilst the UK has been preoccupied by Brexit a far more important struggle for our prosperity has been going on globally about growth in the world economy. Markets have been signalling that Central banks are tightening money too much, and governments are still too wedded to austerity outside the USA.

The Euro economy has suffered most, with German national income and output falling in the third quarter of 2018 and still weak in the fourth quarter. Car output in particular has been hit by the Chinese slowdown, by regulatory change from the EU and by the pace of technical and regulatory change workdwide. The UK economy has performed better despite both a monetary and fiscal tightening last year of some severity.

The world’s two giant economies, USA and China, have both followed tight money policies which have slowed them down. Interest rate sensitive areas like homes and cars have seen sales hit by dearer and scarcer credit.The Chinese stock market fell to half its elevated high of 2016, and Wall Street had a sharp sell off in November and December. It now looks as if both these leading economies will abate the severity a bit, which is necessary to sustain growth. China has announced lower reserve ratio requirements for banks, and the Fed has backed off full support for a more aggressve set of rate rises in 2019.

The Eurozone will have to announce no rate rises for the foreseeable future and no move to Quantitative tightening if it wants to avoid recession. It may end up allowing a little bit of fiscal relaxation as France struggles to respond to the gilet jaunes and as Italy’s government insists on just a little less austerity. The problem is that without proper transfers within the Eurozone from taxpayers in rich countries to the poor in lower income countries they do need to keep up a stricter discipline. This bites more on the poorer areas in the zone, causing political tension and fuelling populist movements.With the AFD doing better in polls, the German government will need to get even tougher about budget controls on weaker Eurozone members, and reaffirm a no new grants or bail outs policy.

There is no great inflation problem the Central banks need to pre empt or control. There is a shortage of demand and slow real wage growth which sensible economic policies need to combat. The UK economy needs the £ 39 bn to spend over the next two years on a mixture of public service improvements and real wage boosting tax cuts.

There does need to be a better policy response in the UK to the collapse of car sales. The UK has made the general global situation worse at home by its big hike in Vehicle Excise duties and the uncertainty over future tax and regulatory policy towards diesels. With so much change in the air over future engine styles, autonomous vehicles and extent of urban controls over cars the traditional car makers are struggling. On both sides of the Atlantic monetary policy is also affecting the price and availability of car purchase loans.

To win a majority and sustain a government you need to be able to count.
A majority in the Commons is 321 supporting MPs, when allowing for the Speaker and Sinn Fein who do not vote.
The natural majority is therefore Conservative 317 plus DUP 10, giving 327.
The Conservatives could also form a majority with the SNP or Lib Dems on numbers, but there is clearly no wish on either side to do so, and huge differences of policy and attitude over Scottish independence, second referendum on the EU and other matters.
Labour would only form a majority coalition if it consolidated every party bar the Conservatives, which is also a political impossibility given the attitude of Labour to Northern Ireland and the DUP.

Some say as parties are split there could be a new coalition of the willing to put through a second referendum, or a Norway solution, or to cancel Brexit altogether. There simply are not the numbers to do that, all the time the two main parties oppose a second referendum and say we must leave.

We now know there are 71 Labour MPs willing to defy Mr Corbyn to speak out for a second referendum. With 35 SNP MPs and 12 Liberal democrats, also wanting a second vote, that makes a total of 118. In the unlikely event of Mrs May changing her mind over the desirability of a second vote, there would still be no majority for it, as at least the 110 Conservative anti Agreement MPs and the DUP would oppose it, a more numerous force than the 118 on the opposition benches. Mrs May does not want a second referendum. She presumably does not want to split the Conservative party on the issue. She must understand on current numbers a second referendum cannot pass. It is also very likely more than 110 Conservative MPs would defy any suggestion they voted for one.

We cannot be sure how many MPs want the so called Norway option. It is not official Labour policy and seems to have fewer Labour supporters than a second referendum, so similar considerations apply as with the second referendum. It has a couple of additional major problems. It would require the consent of the EU to a delay in Brexit, which would probably leave the EU saying the UK would still have to accept the Withdrawal Agreement and use the 21 month negotiating period in that to set it up if possible. It would also require the consent of existing EFTA members, and EU consent which would come if at all at a price. It would need the government to adopt that to carry out the negotiations.

There is then the official Labour policy, somewhat vaguely and erratically expressed, of staying in a customs union. This is sometimes linked with also being able to negotiate our own trade agreements, which would be incompatible with customs union membership. It is difficult to see how a majority would coalesce around this unless the government also made it official Conservative policy, which would detach more than 110 Conservative MPs from supporting the government and make much of the Department of International Trade redundant. It is unlikely the EU would ever consent to the UK being in the customs union, having its own different trade arrangements with others, and not having to observe the laws and freedoms of the single market and make financial contributions at the same time.

There should be no surprise that senior German government figures want the UK to stay in the EU. They show their scorn for democracy by asking for that and take us for fools. They want the UK to keep on paying huge sums of money to help with the costs of their political and monetary union which we have never wanted to join. They want the EU to write our laws for us to help their commercial interests. They want to keep UK tariffs high on cars and food from the rest of the world to ensure they run a huge trade surplus with us at the expense of UK consumers. If I were a German politician I would be desperate for the UK to sign the Withdrawal Agreement or cancel Article 50 as that would be great for Germany. It would also mean the UK looking stupid in the eyes of the rest of the world as we dithered and then climbed down over our future, saying we cannot manage to be independent and govern ourselves.