HC Deb 05 April 1984 vol 57 cc1099-100
5. Mr. Proctor

asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has received concerning the Green Paper, "The Next Ten Years: Public Expenditure and Taxation into the 1990s", Cmnd. 9189; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Lawson

No formal representations have been received to date. I understand that the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee will he examining the Green Paper, and I look forward to its views.

Mr. Proctor

Will my right hon. Friend ensure that he is not blown off his declared course by making certain that finance determines expenditure, and not the other way around?

Mr. Lawson

That is my firm intention. Too often expenditure has been allowed to grow in response to perceived needs and this has led to far greater total expenditure than the economy can safely carry, thus creating many of the problems that we have had. That is why it is our firm intention to ensure that public expenditure in total is maintained within what the economy can afford, allowing for further reductions in public borrowing and in taxation.

Mr. Wainwright

Will the Chancellor soon satisfy the demand for a second Green Paper, "Into the 1990s", in which he will set out all the measures necessary, or which he considers necessary, to accomplish economic growth, in spite of far less North sea oil, at the rate of 2.25 per cent. into the 1990s which is the precarious assumption on which all the speculations in the present Green Paper are balanced?

Mr. Lawson

The hon. Gentleman's appetite for Green Papers is insatiable, but then, of course, he represents a green party. I have to tell him that the Green Paper on the next 10 years explicitly allowed for declining North sea oil revenues. That is fully taken into account.

Mr. Marlow

Will my right hon. Friend give the House an undertaking that there will be no agreement with the European Community about own resources unless he can also give an undertaking to the House that the average net contribution at today's prices to the Community over the next 10 years will be less than over the last 10 years?

Mr. Lawson

Although I am not quite sure that that really arises on this question, I am happy to answer by saying that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer have made the Government's position perfectly clear on this.—[Laughter.] I am sorry, I meant my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary.

Mr. Gould

Is the Chancellor aware that the Federation of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors and other industrialists in similar spheres are extremely concerned at the low level of public capital spending? Will he now take action to rescue that form of spending from its historically low levels, both in the interests of the economy as a whole and for the purpose of maintaining our industrial infrastructure?

Mr. Lawson

I am confident that the Budget measures that I introduced on 13 March will give the British economy the best chance of sustaining and continuing the very sound recovery that is now under way, the soundest recovery that we have had for a long time, from which various sectors of the economy will benefit. To single out one sector and argue for special measures for it is not an approach that I favour.

Mr. Hattersley

Does the Chancellor recall that on page 26 of the Green Paper there is a list of assumptions which the Government have made for the next three or four years? Missing from that list is an assumption about unemployment during the next three years. What assumptions have the Government made about that?

Mr. Lawson

The assumptions in the Green Paper are consistent with the continuing decline in unemployment over the 10-year period as a whole.