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@Ed_Miliband's #budget #budget2013 response in full
Ed Miliband’s 2013 Budget response was as follows:
Mr Deputy Speaker.
This is the Chancellor’s fourth Budget, but one thing unites them all.
Every Budget he comes to this house and things are worse not better for the country.
Compared to last year’s Budget
Growth last year, down.
Growth this year, down.
Growth next year, down.
They don’t think growth matters, but people in this country do.
And all he offers is more of the same.
A more of the same Budget from a downgraded Chancellor.
Britain deserves better than this.
I do have to say to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he almost need not have bother coming to the House because the whole Budget, including the market-sensitive fiscal forecast was in the Standard before he rose to his feet.
To be fair to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I sure he didn’t intend the whole of the Budget to be in the Standard before he rose to his feet and I hope he will investigate and report back to the House.
Now, what did the Prime Minister declare late last year, and I quote:
“The good news will keep coming”.
And what did the Chancellor tell us today?
Under this Government the bad news just doesn’t stop.
Back in June 2010 the Chancellor promised:
“a steady and sustained recovery…”
He was wrong.
We’ve had the slowest recovery for 100 years.
Last year he said in the Budget there would be no double dip recession.
He was wrong, there was.
He told us a year ago that growth would be 2% this year.
He was wrong.
Now he says it will be just 0.6%.
He told us that next year, growth would be 2.7%.
Wrong again.
Now just 1.8%.
Wait for tomorrow the Chancellor says, and I will be vindicated.
But with this Chancellor tomorrow never comes.
He’s the wrong man.
In the wrong place.
At the worst possible time for the country.
It’s a downgraded budget from a downgraded Chancellor.
He has secured one upgrade this year.
Travelling first class on a second class ticket from Crewe to London.
And the only time the country’s felt all in it together, was when he got booed by 80,000 people at the Paralympics.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I’ve got some advice for the Chancellor.
Stay away from the cup final, even if Chelsea get there.
And, who is paying the price for the Chancellor’s failure?
Britain’s families.
In his first Budget he predicted that living standards would rise over the Parliament.
But wages are flat.
Prices are rising.
And Britain’s families are squeezed.
And what the Chancellor didn’t tell us, is that the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed the British people will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010.
It’s official: you’re worse off under the Tories.
Worse off, year after year after year. And wasn’t there an extraordinary omission from his speech, no mention of the AAA rating.
What the Prime Minister called the “mark of trust”.
Which he told us had been “secured”.
The Chancellor said it would be a humiliation for Britain to be downgraded.
So not just a downgraded Chancellor.
A humiliated Chancellor too.
And what about borrowing?
The Chancellor made the extraordinary claim in his speech that he was “on course”.
Mr Deputy Speaker, even he can’t believe this nonsense.
Debt is higher in every year of this Parliament than he forecast at the last Budget.
He is going to borrow £200 billion more than he planned.
And what did he say in his June 2010 Budget:
He set two very clear benchmarks, and I quote, “We are on track to have debt falling and a balanced structural current budget” by 2014/15.
Or as he called it “our four-year plan”.
This was the deal he offered the British people.
These were the terms.
Four years of pain, tax rises ….
The Prime Minister says from a sedentary position, borrow more, you are borrowing more.
And he just needs to look down the road, because the Business Secretary was asked and he said: “We are borrowing more”. From his own Business Secretary.
So these were the terms: four years, tax rises, and spending cuts, and the public finances would be sorted.
So today he should have been telling us:
Just one more year of sacrifice.
In twelve months the good times will roll.
Job done.
Mission accomplished.
Election plan underway.
But three years on, what does he say?
Exactly what he said three years ago.
We still need four more years of pain, tax rises and spending cuts.
In other words, after all the misery, all the harsh medicine, all the suffering by the British people:
Three years.
No progress.
Deal broken.
Same old Tories.
And all he offers is more of the same.
It’s as if they really do believe their own propaganda.
That the failure is nothing to do with them.
We’ve heard all the excuses:
The snow, the royal wedding, the Jubilee, the eurozone.
And now they’re turning on each other.
The Prime Minister said last weekend, and I quote:
“Let the message go out from this hall and this party: We are here to fight”.
Mr Deputy Speaker, they’re certainly doing that.
The Business Secretary’s turned on the Chancellor.
The Home Secretary’s turned on the Prime Minister.
And the Education Secretary’s turned on her.
The whole country can see that’s what’s going on.
The blame game has begun in the Cabinet.
The truth is the Chancellor is lashed to the mast, not because of his judgement, but because of pride.
Not because of the facts, but because of ideology.
And why does he stay in his job?
Not because the country want him.
Not because his party want him.
But because he is the Prime Minister’s last line of defence.
The Bullingdon boys really are both in it together.
And they don’t understand, you need a recovery made by the many not just a few at the top.
It’s a year now since the omnishambles Budget.
We’ve had u-turns on charities, on churches, on caravans.
And yes, on pasties.
But there is one policy they are absolutely committed to.
The top rate tax cut.
John the banker, remember him?
He’s had a tough year, earning just £1m.
What does he get? He gets a tax cut of £42,500 next year.
£42,500, double the average wage.
His colleague, let’s call him George, his colleague has done a little better, bringing home £5 million. What does he get in a tax cut?
I know the Prime Minister doesn’t like to hear what he agreed to, what does he get? A tax cut of nearly £250,000.
And at the same time everyone else is paying the price.
The Chancellor is giving with one hand, and taking far more away with the other.
Hard working families hit by the strivers tax.
Pensioners hit by the granny tax.
Disabled people hit by the bedroom tax.
Millions paying more so millionaires can pay less.
Now the Chancellor mentioned childcare.
He wants a round of applause for cutting £7bn in help for families this Parliament, and offering £700m of help in the next.
But what are the families who are waiting for that childcare help told? They’ve got to wait over two years for help to arrive.
But for the richest in society, they just have to wait two weeks for the millionaires tax cut to kick in.
This is David Cameron’s Britain.
And still the Prime Minister refuses to tell us – despite repeated questions – whether he is getting the 50p tax cut.
Oh he’s getting embarrassed now, you can see.
He’s had a year to think about it.
He must have done the maths.
Even he should have worked it out by now.
So come on.
Nod your head if you are getting the 50p tax rate.
They ask am I?
No I am not getting the 50p tax rate, I am asking whether the PM is.
Come on answer.
After all, he is the person that said sunlight is the best disinfectant, let transparency win the day.
Now let’s try something else. What about the rest of the Cabinet, are they getting the 50p tax rate?
OK, hands up if you are not getting the 50p tax cut?
Come on, hands up.
Just put your hand up if you are not getting the 50p tax cut. They are obviously … they don’t like it do they?
At last the Cabinet are united, with a simple message:
Thanks George.
He’s cutting taxes for them, while raising them for everyone else.
Now the Chancellor announced some measures today that he said would boost growth.
Just like he does every year.
And every year they fail.
I could mention the “national loan guarantee scheme”, he trumpeted that last year.
And then he abolished just four months later.
The Funding for Lending scheme, that he said would transform the prospects for small business.
The work programme that is worse than doing nothing.
And today he talked a lot about housing.
And the Prime Minister said this in 2011. He launched his so-called housing strategy, and in his own understated way he labelled it “a radical and unashamedly ambitious strategy”. He said it would give the housing industry a shot in the arm, enable 100,000 people to buy their own home.
18 months later, how many families have been helped?
Not 100,000.
Not even 10,000.
Just fifteen hundred out of 100,000 promised
That’s 98,500 broken promises.
For all the launches, strategies and plans, housing completions are now at the lowest level since the 1920s.
And 130,000 jobs lost in construction because of their failing economic plan.
It’s a failing economic plan from a failing Chancellor.
The Chancellor has failed the tests of the British people:
Growth, living standards and hope.
But he has not just failed their tests. He has failed on his own as well.
All he has to offer is this more of the same Budget.
Today the Chancellor joined twitter.
He could have got it all into 140 characters.
Growth down. Borrowing up. Families hit. And millionaires laughing all the way to the bank. #downgradedChancellor.
Mr Deputy Speaker, more of the same is not the answer to the last three years.
More of the same is the answer of a downgraded Chancellor, in a downgraded Government.
Britain deserves better than this.
This Thursday's meeting on application forms and inheritance tax
The BPP Legal Awareness Society – “putting law at the heart of business” – is a member of the BPP Students Association (website here).
Our meeting on Thursday this week is at a slightly earlier time of 5.30 pm.
It’s in room 2.4, BPP Law School, Holborn.
Only members of BPP may attend.
We’ll be discussing the online application form and an overview of the possible tax changes in the imminent budget.
You can download the flier here:
You can download the handout for this presentation here: Application form handout
After our meeting, we’ll be having our committee meeting, and then recording our podcast which will be a response to these questions: Questions
It's hurting but it isn't working – Ed Miliband's brilliant response
Ed Miliband’s speech was brilliant with this incredible ad lib:
“George Osborne at the weekend aspired to be a mix of Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine, with typical Conservative hubris. He’s more like Norman Lamont with an iPod playing ‘Je Ne Regrette Rien'”.
Remember this?
Well, this is the text of today’s response by the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, to the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing his UK budget for 2011.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the Chancellor spoke for nearly an hour.
But one fact says it all.
Growth down last year, this year and next year.
It is the same old Tories.
It’s hurting but it isn’t working.
What did he say last year about growth?
Judge me on the figures.
Well judge him we will.
Every time he comes to this House, growth is downgraded.
Last June, 2011 growth down from 2.6% to 2.3%.
In November, down again.
In January what did the Prime Minister say?
His three priorities for this year were growth, growth, growth.
And what happened?
Growth is down, down, down.
And taking account of all the measures.
What is the Chancellor’s singular achievement?
To deliver a budget for growth that downgrades the growth forecasts.
Down this year to 1.7%.
Downgraded next year too.
It didn’t happen by chance.
It happened by choice.
His choice.
And it’s the wrong choice.
To go too far and too fast.
There was another way.
In his own words from the June Budget – he chose to go £40bn further and faster in tax rises and spending cuts than our plan to halve the deficit over four years.
It’s the pace of cuts that has seen consumer confidence fall in almost every month since the General Election.
In his first Budget the Chancellor promised:
“steady and sustained economic recovery”.
And when last September’s growth figures came out, the Chancellor took the credit.
He called the figures “a vote of confidence” in the Government’s economic policy.
But when the economy contracted in the fourth quarter, what did he do?
He blamed the snow.
Mr Deputy Speaker, even he must appreciate the irony.
Because while the Prime Minister was grounded from his Christmas trip to Thailand, the Chancellor was on the piste in Klosters.
Mr Deputy Speaker, I guess it was the right type of snow for a skiing holiday.
Just the wrong kind of snow for our economy.
But what is it about the British snow?
They had worse snow in Germany…
…a big freeze in France…
… in the US – the worst blizzards for decades.
But despite all of that their economies grew in the fourth quarter.
And while our growth forecasts have worsened, theirs have improved.
The German economy is forecast to grow more strongly than it was last year.
So is the US.
Growth in the world economy has been revised up.
But which is the ma jor country downgrading its growth forecasts?
The United Kingdom.
It’s not the wrong type of snow that’s to blame, Mr Deputy Speaker.
It’s the wrong type of Chancellor,
…the wrong type of chancellor, in the wrong type of government
With the wrong priorities for Britain.
He also promised in June that his Budget would deliver “low inflation”
And what has happened?
Inflation has risen month after month after month.
It didn’t simply happen by accident.
It is happening because he took the wrong decision on VAT.
Same old taxes.
Same old Tories.
And he promised us falling unemployment too.
And what has happened since he gave his first Budget?
Over 60,000 more people looking for work.
And today we are told in the Red Book unemployment is forecast to rise further.
To this Tory Government, just like the ones of the past, unemployment is still a price worth paying.
And many people will wonder what world the Chancellor was describing today.
In the constituencies of over 130 Members of this House, 10 people are chasing every job.
One in five young people looking for work.
Communities seeing libraries and children centres closing.
Families seeing their living standards squeezed.
Not just this year, but year after year after year.
And what does the Government say to communities losing jobs?
Let me tell you what they recently told the people of Newport, justifying the closure of their passport office.
It said the redundancy payments of the staff being sacked would provide a “boost in trade for the local economy”.
What kind of planet are these people living on?
On growth, on inflation, on unemployment – on the promises he made, the Chancellor couldn’t bring himself to admit the truth.
That his second Budget tells the story of the failure of his first.
At this stage of the recovery growth should be powering ahead.
Unemployment should be falling fast.
And every month when unemployment is higher than it should be it stores up long-term damage.
Every month when growth is lower than it should be, it hits the future potential of our economy.
The problem is, instead of admitting it, he refuses to change course.
What did the Energy Secretary say?
If the figures change the Government “should not be lashed to the mast” of their reckless gamble.
It should be willing to change and think again.
Mr Deputy Speaker, it’s not as if they haven’t had practice at the u-turn business.
They’re becoming the past masters.
On forests, school sport, housing benefit for those looking for work, even on the vanity photographer, they have been forced to climb-down.
But on this, the issue that matters most, they are least willing to change.
At the weekend we learned something new about the Chancellor:
Apparently, his political aspiration is to be a blend of Nigel Lawson and Michael Heseltine.
Mr Deputy Speaker, another comparison springs to mind.
Because we see the same refusal to change course we saw from the Tories in the early 1980s.
The same hubris and arrogance of the early 1990s.
He’s more like the political love child of Geoffrey Howe and Norman Lamont.
Next thing we know, he’ll be ordering in the champagne and singing in the bath, je ne regrette rien.
Mr Deputy Speaker, this is not a growth Budget.
It is not a jobs Budget.
It is a Budget for more of the same.
From a complacent, arrogant Chancellor.
In a complacent, arrogant Government.
It’s hurting but it isn’t working.
Mr Deputy Speaker, let us not forget, these are not just the Chancellor’s decisions.
They are not just the Prime Minister’s decisions.
They’re the Deputy Prime Minister’s decisions too.
He is an accomplice to this Tory plan.
When it comes to the economy, the man who coined the phrase alarm clock Britain has the snooze button well and truly on.
Nobody voted for this deficit plan.
Least of all his Liberal Democrat voters who were told in promise after promise that he would never countenance it.
Mr Deputy Speaker, if I can put it this way, is it any wonder no-one wants to share a platform with him.
On the measures he proposes to support growth, we will look at them.
But there is little reason to believe they will make the difference to growth we need.
The Office for Budget Responsibility has already factored in every single measure he’s just announced.
And they still produced today’s downgraded growth forecast and higher unemployment figures.
And it’s no wonder.
An enterprise zone proposal dusted off from the 1980s cannot undo the damage of a deficit plan that goes too far and too fast.
It didn’t work then, it won’t work now.
And you can’t blame people for being sceptical when the Chancellor says he’s got a new flagship policy for growth.
Because what happened to his last flagship policy for growth, at the centre of his June Budget?
Does anyone remember the national insurance holiday
He was strangely silent about it today.
In June he boasted it would help to protect the areas worst hit by his cuts.
He stood at that despatch box taking credit for the 400,000 small firms he said would benefit.
How many have actually benefitted?
Mr Deputy Speaker, he’s been strangely shy in revealing the figures but someone let slip to the Financial Times.
By mid-January it wasn’t 400,000.
It wasn’t 40,000.
It wasn’t even 4,000.
It was less than a half of one percent of the number he prom ised, just 1,500 businesses.
And his green flagship policy, the Green Investment Bank.
I think his energy Secretary had it spot on.
“Ducks quack, and banks borrow as well as lend.”
Well his green bank can’t borrow for the next 5 years.
And this policy is a lame duck.
On his incentives for small firms, we will look at the detail
But I have to say, his decision to cancel flexible working for families with children between 16 and 18 is extraordinary.
Only this Prime Minister could take the credit for championing a policy with Mumsnet, and then a few months later take the credit with small business for dumping it.
You’ve got to ask Mr Deputy Speaker – has he no shame?
The idea that families needing flexibility imperil our economic future is frankly absurd.
And tells you all you need to know about this Government’s values and how they think our economy succeeds.
Greater insecurity as t he route to greater prosperity.
Well we take a different view.
Flexible working is yet another broken promise from the broken promise Prime Minister.And while we’re on the subject what about one of the biggest broken promises of all.
Remember what he said before the election?
He, the Prime Minister, was banker basher in chief.
He was the man to deliver, and I quote, a day of reckoning for the bankers.
It’s not a day of reckoning, it’s business as usual.
Last year Labour’s bonus tax raised £3.5bn.
And this year their bank levy raises just £1.9bn.
A Tory Government cutting taxes for the banks.
Instead of doing that he should have used the money to reintroduce the Future Jobs Fund, build 25,000 homes, and boost enterprise.
They are not taking the long term steps to build the high skill, high wage economy of the future.
Mr Deputy Speaker, they are failing on growth, and they are failing on living standards too.
What did the Prime Minister say before the election to families receiving tax credits?
He said that below £50,000 a year, their tax credits were safe
When Labour said otherwise, the Home Secretary said this:
“That is a lie, and it is irresponsible for Labour to be … worrying families needlessly”.
But what is the truth?
Next year, over one million families with incomes as low as £26,000 will lose all their tax credits.
They should be ashamed of their broken promises.
All part of the cost of living crisis they are imposing.
The Chancellor trumpeted the rise in the personal allowance.
But let’s look at the facts.
He came along in the June Budget and put up VAT, costing families £450 a year.
Now he’s got the nerve to expect them to be grateful when he gives them a fraction of their own money back.
Let me tell you what the Institute for Fiscal Studies told us this morning: “there is an awful lot of giving with one hand… and taking away with lots and lots of other hands.”
It’s the classic Tory con.
And what about their decision on petrol?
He’s done the same thing again.
He’s cut duty by 1 pence.
But he’s whacked up VAT on fuel by 3p.
Families won’t be fooled.
It’s Del Boy economics.
For a two earner family both on average wages, after VAT and tax credits, it’s the same as 5p up in the basic rate of income tax this year and just 1p down next.
What do the British people know from history?
Every Tory tax cut ends up costing them more.
Same old Tories.
Same old deceit.
We needed a Budget that changed the direction of economic policy.
We needed a Budget that protected the Promise of Britain that the next generation does better than the last.
We needed a Budget that changed course on cutting too far and too fast.
The Chancellor said at the weekend with his customary modesty that he had completed his rescue mission of the British economy.
After this Budget, it’s not the Chancellor who is rescuing the country.
It is the country that needs rescuing from the Chancellor.
Mr Deputy Speaker, when families look at this Budget,
Look at the squeeze on their living standards,
Look at the job losses in their communities,
They will conclude:
It’s hurting but it isn’t working.
A dismal growth plan sets today's agenda in the Budget
Today’s ‘Growth Plan’ will restrict leave for parents, more public services to be outsourced, R&D tax credits, and more enterprise zones, but it is difficult to assess whether the markets will accept this as a particularly credible growth plan.
The Sir John Vickers report on the future of the investment banks will be an useful first step in determining what to do with the regulation of the banks, which must be addressed. Ed Balls must outline the vital importance for the need for this, given that the Conservatives or the Labour Party have previously not done this. The scope for this is large, but might include comprehensive stress tests for new financial instruments.
“Judge me on the facts” is what George Osborne wants, and the facts are we have a rise in VAT, a fall in consumer confidence, massive cuts, rising unemployment, higher inflation and possibly higher interest rates.
Labour should not allow the public sector investment to be mantra for the cause of the recession. Public satisfaction in the NHS was highest ever recorded, we have lowest National debt before the world recession, and it is difficult to claim that the primary blame of the economic crisis was over-spending in the public sector.
Osborne will wish Balls to specify where he would cut, and indeed Ed can say that he would cut less, and specify precisely the areas to cut. There could be a bank bonus tax, which we could use to get the unemployed back to work, especially construction workers whose faltering output in Q4 was a contributing factor to our poor growth. Osborne can make a stop to duty rise, which Labour would have done. Furthermore, Osborne’s argument that he is unable to reverse the rise in VAT due to Europe needs scrutiny by fellow journals and expert advisors. However, the investment banks are very important for GDP in this country, and many industries are reliant on them.
The budget
I have a terrific regard for the University of Oxford and the PPE course (Politics, Philosophy and Economics).
As an educationalist, I think it is a very clever combination of three subjects taught to a hugh standard by three separate examination schools. However, as a neuroscientist, I think the subject is ahead of its time. For me, it represents whether the markets operate with free will or deterministically, and whether its expedient for governments to make decisions around such findings, inter alia. And the list of PPE graduates is a wonder to behold: Andreas Whittam-Smith, Guto Harri, Mary Ann Sieghart, Nick Cohen, Nick Robinson; and of course, Stephanie Flanders, Hugh Pym and Ed Balls. I was disappointed, but not particularly surprised, to see George Osborne not on this list.
With the ritualistic nature of the Budget, it is easy to forget that the budget for any business entity represents the pivotal focus of budgeting (as the name would imply) and forecasting. This is interesting in the context of the overall business strategy, and provides an important exercise for seeing the progress of the organisation with its economic goals. In summary, we saw inflation go up to 4.4% yesterday, GDP is going down (although hopefully it is likely we will avoid a ‘double dip’ of two quarters of negative growth seeing us back into recession), unemployment rising particularly youth unemployment, and interest rates probably about to go up. The danger with the cuts strategy, of cutting quite so much fast so fast, was that we would risk slow growth, with people being laid off in the public sector with the private sector not picking up the slack, as the Tory-led government had hoped. This would mean there would be less spending power, more unemployment benefit being paid, less tax revenue, and the deficit actually not being cut as fast as desirable. It is also incredibly depressing for morale. Many of us have felt that even if the deficit is paid off fast the wreckage that would be produced socially would be difficult to recover from. Hence, we at Cambridge, have a somewhat different emphasis. We don’t call it “Politics, Philosophy and Economics”, but “Social and Political Sciences”. You’ll see this perhaps this Saturday…
