I began business questions this week by wishing everyone a Happy Easter as this was the last session before recess. I have heard rumours that there are plans afoot to start selling a ‘coalition’ Easter egg so I enjoyed speculating what that might look like. It would have shiny yellow wrapping, but the chocolate would be true blue. Despite the slick advertising it would be entirely hollow … And it would come with two free mugs and a health warning!
I emphasised that the situation with the EU bank bailout for Cyprus is volatile and fast-moving. The government gave assurances at the weekend that no British service personnel or civil servants working in Cyprus would lose out – and then had to dispatch an aircraft full of cash to fulfil that promise. I asked the leader of the House to consider a recall of parliament over the recess if the situation seriously deteriorates, as a bank run in a eurozone country would have serious implications for the UK.
I noted that as the chancellor was busy revealing the scale of his economic failure during the budget, the House of Lords were busy voting to defeat his absurd shares for employment rights scheme, which was announced with great fanfare at Tory party conference. Mrs Thatcher’s favourite chancellor Nigel Lawson was so impressed with his successor’s flagship policy that he voted against it – and he wasn’t the only one.
Before the budget yesterday, market sensitive information was leaked before the chancellor had even opened his mouth. I share the concern of the speaker John Bercow, who made a statement on the severity of the breach before business questions started. While we welcome the apology from the Evening Standard, I suggested that it is now the case that budget secrecy is a principle more honoured in the breach than the observance.
The chancellor’s budget already seems to be unravelling. On the radio this morning he refused to say whether his mortgage support schemes would be open to those who wish to buy second homes up to the value of £600,000. I asked Andrew Lansley to clarify whether it is the government’s intention to subsidise the purchase of second homes while homelessness rates soar, and I suggested this could be their first budget U-turn.
Prime minister’s questions will not now take place for a whole month, so the prime minister should have time to read all of the budget documents for himself. Close inspection will show him that the Office for Budget Responsibility has halved growth forecasts for this year and downgraded them for next. Borrowing will be £245bn higher than it thought in the spending review to pay for the costs of his government’s failing economic plan, and real wages will fall by 2.7 per cent over the course of this parliament.
We have had three years of pain with not an inch of gain.
The chancellor claimed he was trying to light the fires of ambition but it’s his own reputation and the dreams of millions that are going up in smoke. And next week 13,000 millionaires will get a tax cut while the rest of us pay the price of this government’s failure.
This was a downgraded budget from a downgraded chancellor.
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Angela Eagle is MP for Wallasey, shadow leader of the House of Commons and writes the weekly Business of Parliament column for Progress. She tweets @AngelaEagle
Well that a very concise summary of what Labour would do instead. A Laboured joke (no pun intended) about Easter Eggs, and nothing else. Why spout all this stuff about a tax cut for millionaires ? Labour kept the top rate of tax at 40p for 13 years ! And even then people didn’t pay 40% Tax because there are so many tax breaks and fiddles. What was Labour record on providing council hosues ? hundreds of thousands sold off, fewer built then under Thatcher and John Major, and that’s including Housing Associations. The Government has cut less and borrowed more – pretty much what Labour called for. How do we know whether it ‘worked’ or whether it is a better or worse situation than would otheriwse have been. We don’t. It’s sheer speculation. Can anything is a modern economy be changed in a year ? Why do you expect instant results when there are forces beyond any Governments control.