Budget 2009: MP reactions
Nine MPs representing constituencies from across Britain give their take on Alistair Darling’s Budget.
Julian Brazier – Conservative MP for Canterbury and Whitstable
No government in the history of this country has ever allowed the government’s finances to run out of control in this way.
The key thing is they are admitting now to more than doubling the national debt and as David Cameron pointed out, their figures are highly suspect. Their position is much, much worse than they presented it.
We are talking about slinging huge levels of debt around generations as yet unborn and are providing no solutions at all for getting it under control.
Canterbury’s difficulties in the recession:
John Battle – Labour MP for Leeds West
I thought the chancellor was in a very tight corner. His options were to borrow more or cut health and education back massively. He had to try and manage that balance of borrowing and spending without driving away all the investment from the City and sending the stock exchange plunging to the floor.
I thought he came out of that tight corner with a really tightly balanced Budget. The slightly encouraging news is that though we’re borrowing a lot now, the projected growth by the IMF today at two per cent is actually greater than I saw during the deep recessions of the late 70s and 80s.
John Battle on the Bradford-Leeds civil war, the recession and more:
Tim Yeo – Conservative MP for Suffolk South
The challenge that David Cameron will have, assuming he’s prime minster next year, is this nightmare inheritance that he takes over. A lot of the commitments being announced in today’s Budget extend well into the next parliament. It’s going to be very hard to change those so in a sense a big chunk of the first Conservative Budget has been pre-empted by what was said today.
People are scared about what’s happening now. I think they are looking for a change.
Tim Yeo on how the recession is affecting his constituents:
Martin Horwood – Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham
You do have to feel a little bit of sympathy for Alistair Darling – he’s presiding over a collapsing economy and he really didn’t have a lot of room for manoeuvre. So he had to present things like not cutting pensions or just taking the advice of the environmental committee as major headline items and really it was fairly thin stuff.
It failed to tackle some of the key issues that matter to people on the street. The lack of boldness gets quite serious in a way when you won’t relook at things that were obvious mistakes – like the waste of more than £10 billion of public money on the VAT tax cut.
Martin Horwood reveals his sympathy for Alistair Darling:
Angus MacNeil – SNP MP for Na h-Eileanan an lar (Western Isles)
We could see very little in it [the Budget] for Scotland. The good news that was in it will unravel in the next few days. It’s a Brownian chancellor’s speech – the good news was in it but I think the bad news is going to come out.
This is a government that’s lost control of the public finances. The UK’s in a mess. I think we’re in a nightmare scenario.
Angus MacNeil explains his brush with Gordon Brown in the Commons:
Brian Iddon – Labour MP for Bolton South East
It’s not one of those Budgets you can get excited about, is it? But I think most people will realise that it’s not as bad a Budget as it could have been if all the debt that Alistair has borrowed to keep businesses going and people in jobs had to be paid off pretty rapidly.
Unemployment is probably my biggest worry at the moment. Certainly people are concerned about their businesses as well. But today’s Budget I think is good, particularly for young people leaving school or college or university for the first time.
Brian Iddon admits frustration with the government:
John Hayes – Conservative MP for South Holland and the Deepings
The problem with the package that we heard today is it is so heavily weighted on borrowing that [my constituents] and their children are going to end up paying for government failure.
It’s absolutely right we’re in a pickle but you have to ask yourself the question, why? Given that Gordon Brown was in charge of the economy, first as chancellor and then as prime minister, it would be ludicrous to assume anything else than he has some responsibility for that.
John Hayes on the Budget’s impact on skills:
Emily Thornberry – Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury
We do have on the one hand Conservatives jumping up and down and being vaguely hysterical. And that is the level of debate that they want. But actually it is contrasted with a very sensible and careful Budget that doesn’t pretend to be anything other than it is.
We are making it perfectly clear that in order to get out of these difficulties we have to increase our debt and we have a programme for paying it back. The numbers are large and on the face of it they’re quite frightening – but rather than being whisked off by Tory hysteria you have to listen to what it is that the chancellor says he’s going to do to slowly pay this back. Because the alternative is to allow a young generation of people to never get work, to affect the poorest, to undermine our businesses, to allow savers to lose all their money.
The market does not heal itself. That’s why I’m on the left. That’s why I’m in the Labour party.
The best arguments in favour of the Budget politics.co.uk heard all day:
Cheryl Gillan – Conservative MP for Chesham and Amersham
We have seen a chancellor more interested in having the tax rises for the so-called rich before an election and then hitting the poor and the many after an election. But of course these tax rises are going to affect people on ordinary salaries.
We are extremely worried because the mismanagement of Labour has left the finances in a worse state. I think we will inherit a worse financial position than any incoming Conservative government has ever seen.
Cheryl Gillan on the Budget’s impact on Wales:
