Nicholas Soames, Member of Parliament for Mid Sussex, this week delivered his verdict on the Budget, which sets out the Government’s plans for taxes and public spending. Nicholas Soames expressed concern at plans to increase taxes on families and local firms across Mid Sussex.

Speaking in the House of Commons in the Debate on ‘Budget Resolutions and the Economic Situation’, Nicholas Soames said;-

Mr. Nicholas Soames (Mid-Sussex) (Con): May I warmly endorse the sensible and humane idea put forward by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Dhanda) about building on facilities for elderly people, so that they may be better looked after? Indeed, I am sure that some such step will inevitably be taken in the future and that it will be much welcomed in all parts of the House.

I warmly congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) on a magnificent, sparkling, “three rounds with the heavyweight champion of the House of Commons” speech. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for North Tyneside (Mr. Byers) on making an extremely courageous and important speech that will be much commented on in the years to come as-to steal a quotation from my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Wyre (Mr. Wallace), who is sitting behind me and who I am sure was going to use it-a eulogy for new Labour.

We live in a precarious age. We are going through one of the greatest financial crises-indeed, the greatest-for generations. To bring that home, we all have families in our constituencies-there are certainly many in my constituency-and local firms that are paying a serious and high price for the failings of this Prime Minister and this Government. Of course it would be wrong to say that the Government have achieved nothing. There are considerable achievements to their name, and so there should be, given the amount of money that he has spent. However, if one looks across the years, one sees the most terrible evidence of taxpayers’ money being wasted and the grossest incompetence in the public sector.

It has taken this Prime Minister just 12 years to squander what really was a golden inheritance, which he seized in 1997. Our economy is truly in near ruins. The pensions of many of our people have been pillaged and our reserves have been sold. Three hundred and ninety-five tonnes of gold were sold at an average price of about $270 an ounce, which was a terrible, terrible mistake. He has presided over a decade and more of grotesque financial mismanagement.

I found a quotation that I used in the Budget debate on 23 March 2006, in those golden days, as they seem now. I quoted an article in The Times by Lord Rees-Mogg, who is incidentally the father of not one, but two Conservative candidates at the next election, both of whom I propose to carry into this Chamber on a shield when they are elected. This is what Lord Rees-Mogg said about the then Chancellor and now Prime Minister and how he had debauched the British pensions industry. He said that the Chancellor “took all the big decisions on pensions. He has wrecked the system of private pensions. He has wrecked the system of public pensions. He has destroyed the system of savings. He has tapped pensions by deliberate stealth.

He has impoverished generations of old people, past, present and to come. The Chancellor’s pension policy has been one of the great scandals of British financial history. He should be ever held responsible.”-[ Official Report, 23 March 2006; Vol. 444, c. 470.]

I have news for the House: he will be held responsible.

The Prime Minister has borrowed for the future on a huge scale, but has little to show for it, except for having left many of my constituents terribly burdened by debt. Tax receipts have now collapsed by £50 billion and the Government are already planning to spend £80 billion extra a year. How can that make sane economic sense, when the conditions are as they are?

Restoring prudence and good financial order will, of course, be the work of the next Government, but it will make life very hard. Presumably the Prime Minister is trying, in a highly partisan Budget-no one should be under any illusion that it was not one-to make a poison pill, so that it is harder for everyone concerned and much worse for the future Government.

David Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Soames: No, I will not. I do not mean to be rude, but I have a short amount of time and I must press on.

Indeed, for the Budget to be denominated as “Building Britain’s future” is, to my mind, a seriously disappointing joke. We are left with the biggest peacetime tax burden in our history and the most complex tax system in the world, having recently overtaken India for having the longest and most complicated tax system. The truth is that personal balance sheets are heavily over-borrowed, that bank balance sheets are seriously over-lent and that the Government’s balance sheet is in a truly desperate state.

Even if we leave aside the Chancellor’s fiscally ludicrous growth assumptions and his other obviously unreliable forecasts, the Government have failed in this Budget in so many areas-areas where we need to succeed in the 21st century and take those steps that will repair and reinforce our economy in a global world, which the next Conservative Government will deal with.

Going back to that Budget debate of 23 March 2006, in which I was responding to the Paymaster General, a large chapter of that Budget was called “Meeting the productivity challenge”. The Government have failed dismally to meet that challenge. We must strengthen the skills base of this country. The United Kingdom is woefully bad in that regard, and there is nothing in the Budget that will seriously drive forward our competitiveness. There are not enough of the necessary skills available to our companies, and we compare very poorly with our competitors. Too much of good people’s talent is wasted.

The science and innovation base in this country, although improved, is nothing like good enough. Nowhere near enough was done in the Budget, and an important opportunity has been missed to improve this vital sector, and to help our competitiveness and productivity. The Budget also did nothing to improve the framework for Britain to be a successful enterprise economy. This Budget was indeed a bad day for Britain’s place in the economic world. We have people of great talent-business men in companies of all sizes-but the Government simply put too much on their shoulders. The entrepreneurs and business men of this country are asked to bear too much.

The Government have really hindered our movement towards a greatly simplified tax and regulatory regime. In a globally competitive and highly mobile environment, that is very bad news. I also see no evidence anywhere of strategic thinking on planning and infrastructure. There is no evidence in the Budget of the Government taking a more active role in supporting high-tech manufacturing and engineering, as advocated by two of our greatest industrialists, Sir John Rose of Rolls-Royce and Sir James Dyson. They both, quite rightly, advocate that we create a more balanced and productive economy that is not so reliant on the three motors of finance, property and public spending for its future growth.

There is nothing in the Budget to suggest that the Government understand that the economy of the future must be built on the more solid foundations of savings and investment, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition so powerfully set out yesterday. This Budget does indeed fail the test of time. It fails to rise to the level of events. It does nothing to improve our position in the global context, and nothing at all to improve the dismal condition of our skills base. It does very little to improve the knowledge-based economy. Worst of all, it sends a terrible message about our competitiveness and our productivity.

27th April 2009

Hansard Volume 491 No 65.

col 631 - 633