My Lords, the Minister has mentioned the IMF. Why was it that before the PBR Statement last November the IMF warned the Government that their spending was reckless? The noble Lord has drawn our attention to those IMF views. Why did he not stress that the IMF has been saying for a long time that Britain’s public spending should be reigned in? Why was it that last November the Chancellor of the Exchequer predicted a recovery for the British economy in the third quarter of this year when the IMF was saying precisely the opposite?

My Lords, I shall address those points later in my opening speech. I do not believe that the IMF used the term “reckless” to describe government policy. Indeed, I am very aware that over a number of years the IMF commended the British economy for its growth against low inflation and a fiscally prudent backdrop, and that was reflected in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s thinking when he presented his pre-Budget review in November. If the noble Lord is correct and the IMF used the term “reckless”, I apologise, but I am fairly confident that it did not.

As I was saying, the UK is no exception. As the PBR set out, short and medium-term growth prospects in the UK remain subject to exceptional uncertainty. However, it is now clear that the UK, like the US, the euro area and others, is in recession. These are difficult times and that is why we have taken the action necessary to support people now and to lay the foundations of recovery.

The problem of a lack of lending and constraints on credit is a worldwide one. All the important banks trade in every part of the world. The sources of finance that the banks have used in the past few years have dried up. Financial markets affect everyone’s daily life. If they fail to function properly, the impact is felt right across our economy and by every one of us. Therefore, restoring and maintaining financial stability is absolutely critical.

In October, we took action to stabilise and improve confidence in the banking system and to recapitalise a number of banks. As a result of the action that we took, a collapse of the banking system was avoided and no savers in UK banks lost money. This action, which has since been emulated in a number of other jurisdictions, has resulted in some improvements in bank lending, with the rate of interest at which banks lend to one another coming down by a noticeable margin since the autumn.

At the same time, we are putting money into direct support for small businesses, in particular, through different loan guarantee schemes to help them with short-term difficulties. However, we need to go further. The banks are still not lending to each other in the normal way and the global economic downturn has intensified since the autumn. We are now seeing a vicious circle of weakened banks damaging the economy and a weakening economy hurting the banks. The Government must act now to reverse that vicious circle, to get credit flowing again, to limit the extent of the downturn and to support the recovery, when it comes.

That is why the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced last week, in his Statement in the other place, a comprehensive package of measures designed to reinforce the stability of the financial system, to increase confidence and the capacity to lend, and, in turn, to support the recovery of the economy.

However, as I have said previously, this is a global problem. We have to get the banks lending to each other, not just in Britain but across international borders as well, and we can do that only by working with other Governments across the world. With the UK taking the presidency of the G20, we will take the lead in doing all that we can to prevent a recurrence of these problems, and in this respect we will be working very closely with our European partners.

Because of the economic and financial situation, tax revenues are falling across the world. As company profits fall, so do the proceeds from corporation tax. Receipts from the financial sector alone are expected to reduce by 35 per cent this year. Slower growth in wages means less income tax. Fewer people buying houses and falling prices mean less money from stamp duty, where tax take is down by 40 per cent. This all means that borrowing will be significantly higher than forecast. As a result of the combined effect of lower revenues, our commitment to maintain spending and extra support to the economy, borrowing will rise to £78 billion this year and £118 billion next year, or 8 per cent of GDP. However, from 2010, as we act to reduce borrowing when the economy begins to recover, borrowing will fall: to £105 billion, then £87 billion, £70 billion and £54 billion. By 2015-16 we will, again, be borrowing only to invest.

The economic crisis and action by Governments across the world will inevitably mean sharp increases in national debt relative to GDP. Again, the UK is no exception but, because we started from a stronger position, our debt is forecast to remain below that of most other major countries as we go through this downturn. UK net debt as a share of GDP will increase from 41 per cent this year to 48 per cent in 2009-10, then 53 per cent in 2010-11, before peaking at 57 per cent in 2013-14.

My Lords, this is a crucial question. To what extent do the Government intend to fund that deficit fully from the non-bank public?

My Lords, the Government intend to adopt a prudent and appropriate funding structure and, as such, to seek to fund that deficit fully from the non-bank public sector. As I was saying, UK net debt as a share of GDP will increase before peaking at 57 per cent in 2013-14.

Our economy cannot insulate itself from this global financial turmoil, but credible medium-term objectives and mechanisms for short-term flexibility mean that the Bank of England and the Government can deliver the necessary support to the economy, without compromising their respective commitments to low inflation and sound public finances. Responding to the global financial crisis, the Bank of England has reduced interest rates by 350 basis points since September, to an all-time low of 1.5 per cent, but most people recognise that monetary policy and interest rates on their own are not enough to stimulate the economy. There is widespread international consensus that a fiscal stimulus to help the economy is the right thing to do.

A consensus to do nothing—to walk on by as people struggled to keep their jobs and homes, letting the recession run deeper and longer—would be a massive mistake. The USA, France, Germany, Japan, Italy, India, China, South Korea and Australia—I could go on—have all announced fiscal stimulus packages in recent months. More are expected to follow. That approach has been agreed by the European Council and the leaders of the G20. It is backed by parties of both left and right on every continent; by international institutions such as the IMF and OECD; by business groups such as the CBI and the Institute of Directors; the Bank of England, and many more.

We need immediate action to boost economic activity, help us emerge faster and stronger from these difficult times, and face the future with renewed confidence. If we do not act now, that will cost more to the economy, to the public finances and to society. That is why the Pre-Budget Report represented a package of substantial fiscal action to help the economy now, with a £20 billion fiscal stimulus between now and April 2010, or around 1 per cent of GDP.

We are doing everything in our power to give real help to home owners and to businesses, including cutting VAT by 2.5 per cent for one year and putting £12.4 billion into the economy. We are bringing forward £3 billion of capital projects on housing repairs and insulation, school extensions, GP surgery refurbishments and transport improvements to provide jobs right now when the economy is under pressure. We are increasing support for pensioners and families with children, as well as for all taxpayers on modest to middle incomes. We are helping home owners with the new home owners mortgage support scheme to help people to stay in their homes if they experience a redundancy, and we will continue to invest in public services—just as we have done over the past 10 years. Investing in schools and hospitals and modernising infrastructure and transport links is not just an effective way of stimulating the economy, safeguarding jobs and protecting incomes; it is also vital for the future strength and health of our country.

We have seen in the past the long-term damage that cutting public investment has on the essential fabric of the country and the support people need. Since 1997, we have doubled the NHS budget, cutting hospital waiting lists. Spending on education is 60 per cent higher, improving schools, educational provision and exam results. Transport spending is up by 70 per cent, with more than 130 major road schemes and record numbers travelling by rail.

As the PBR set out, over the medium term, the Government’s fiscal policy objective remains to ensure the sustainability of the public finances to protect economic stability and long-term growth. Therefore, it set out plans to deliver a sustained fiscal consolidation from 2010-11 when the economy is expected to be recovering and is able to support a reduction in public sector borrowing. Our objectives for fiscal policy in the face of these shocks remain unchanged. It is right that in the Pre-Budget Report the Government did all they could to support the economy in these difficult times, taking immediate action to support the economy and setting out a path for ensuring fiscal sustainability. The Government’s objectives of smoothing the path of the economy in the short term while ensuring sound public finances over the medium term are consistent with the October European Council conclusions, which confirmed that the stability and growth pact should be applied in a manner that reflects current exceptional global economic circumstances.

The objectives are also consistent with the European economic recovery plan that was agreed by the December European Council. This calls for an EU-wide fiscal stimulus of around 1.5 per cent of EU GDP and recognises that a temporary deepening of deficits is justified, given the scale of the global crisis. Furthermore, to ensure sustainability of public finances, it calls for consolidation in pace with economic recovery.

These are exceptional times and require exceptional measures. They require immediate action to help people and action to build a stable economy. We have made our choices: helping businesses, helping house owners and helping people into work; boosting incomes; and giving real help now. That is possible only because this Government have taken the deliberate decision to support people and businesses through these difficult times. That is the programme set out in the 2008 Pre-Budget Report and that, with the approval of the House, is the basis on which we will send updated information to the European Commission. I welcome the opportunity to debate it here this afternoon.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for explaining to the House why we should approve this submission of the Pre-Budget Report to the EU. I believe that it is a requirement of a European Council regulation and a related code of conduct that the submission deadline is 1 December. In general, the lateness of the PBR means that we have been given an extension until 1 January, but here we are on 27 January in order to approve the submission. Furthermore, the relevant document, the UK convergence programme, while dated December 2008, was announced as available in a Written Statement only on 14 January. I am sure that the Government are not keen to submit this dreadful story of economic mismanagement to the EU, but will the Minister explain why they have ignored all the deadlines?

My usual line in connection with these Motions, which come up once a year, is that this House should not care over much about what is submitted to Europe in the name of the growth and stability pact. We are fortunate to remain outside the euro, a topic that we will debate more fully on Thursday, so our adherence to Europe’s rules has no real meaning. However, so awful is the content of the PBR and the convergence programme document that I have revised my opinion. Anything that gets an international spotlight on this Government’s appalling record is to be welcomed. The Government deserve every criticism or rebuke that the Commission lays at their door.

The Government have breached the Maastricht criteria of 3 per cent for deficits in the past and have generally used words that have implied that all was well because they were doing the right things and had strict fiscal rules, and so on. However, I do not believe that it has ever been the case that a growth and stability pact document has had to own up to a treaty deficit peaking at more than 8 per cent and remaining at more than 3 per cent for the whole of the forecast period. Nor has the treaty debt ratio been above the 60 per cent limit, but this convergence submission has that in every year, and the figure rises to 68 per cent on the EU’s measurement rules.

The Prime Minister used to lecture the world on his fiscal rules, on prudence and, most of all, on bringing an end to boom and bust. He and his successor as Chancellor threw prudence out of the window some time ago, which was followed late last year by the fiscal rules. The Prime Minister is incapable of admitting that he has made even a tiny error. He has refused to admit that his boast about boom and bust was just plain wrong. He refuses to own up to the bust, which we are assuredly now experiencing, having anything to do with him.

Perhaps I may read a brief extract from an article in the New York Times on 22 January. It states:

“An island nation that bulked up on debt and lived beyond its means. A plunging currency. And a financial system edging toward nationalization … it is no wonder that observers have started to refer to London as ‘Reykjavik-on-Thames’”.

The Prime Minister blames the global financial crisis originating in the US and the Minister today repeated that view. But it is certainly not the whole truth. The Prime Minister, when he was Chancellor, engineered the UK becoming overburdened by debt. The Government like to quote the OECD as having said that our debt level was virtually the lowest in the G7, although the OECD will not say that now as public sector debt rises to more than £1 trillion, nearly 60 per cent of GDP. That ignores the cost of the bank rescues, PFI and unfunded pension liabilities. It amounts to £17,000 for every individual in this country. However, to get a real fix on the overleveraging of our economy, we have to add corporate and personal debt, which we have warned for years was out of control. According to an analysis by Citibank, that takes our debt ratio to more than four times GDP, which is more than double that of any other country in the G7.

The publication of the PBR in November was the first time that the Government admitted publicly that their growth forecasts were completely wrong. Last week, the ONS confirmed that we are officially in recession, with the steepest quarterly GDP fall since 1980. The European Commission came out last week with its own forecasts, which showed the UK as the worst performer in the G7 and virtually at the bottom of the EU league.

In the PBR, we were told that there would be a quick dip into recession this year and that we would start to come out of it in the middle of the year. However, the Commission thinks that this year we will go backwards by almost 2.7 per cent, which is nearly three times the Government’s central forecast. In 2010, according to the Commission, we would just about emerge into positive territory, compared to the Government’s wishful thinking of nearly 2 per cent growth.

If the Government were a company, they would by now have had to issue a profit warning. However, the Government are, in effect, reissuing the figures from the PBR in the convergence programme document as if they were still valid, when they have clearly been overtaken by the increasing pace of the recession. Typically, the Government say that they will revise their forecasts in the Budget, whenever that is, but that is simply not good enough. It does not take a genius to work out that, as the recession deepens, the horrendous borrowing figures will get even worse and the need for action will become even more evident.

That brings me to the alleged centrepiece of the PBR: the fiscal stimulus, for which the Prime Minister likes to claim world leadership. It is clear that the temporary VAT reduction has bombed. Retailers thought it a costly waste of time and I have yet to meet a shopper tempted by an extra 2 per cent discount. We now hear reports of delays in the accelerated capital spending part of the stimulus package. There is a big question mark over the effectiveness of the Government’s fiscal stimulus programme in the PBR.

We question the policy itself. In a weak economy, already burdened by high debt and budget deficits, the scope for increased borrowing, beyond that caused by the automatic stabilisers, is very limited. We are not, as the Government like to claim, on our own in this. Both the IMF and the OECD have emphasised that fiscal stimuli need to be affordable in the context of sustainable public finances. The European Commission said in its recovery plan document, to which the Minister referred in his opening remarks:

“For those member states, in particular outside the Euro area, which are facing significant external and internal imbalances, budgetary policy should essentially aim at correcting those imbalances”.

That was Eurocode for, “The UK has got it wrong”.

We have argued for months that the main problem in the economy is a lack of credit and we proposed a national loans guarantee scheme. Bank rescue version 1 failed to restore credit. In the last two weeks we have seen bank rescue version 2 and a package of lending measures aimed at smaller businesses. We wish them well but are far from convinced that they will solve the problems faced by the business community. Beyond that, we believe that fiscal stimuli, in the context of a bust economy, must come from expenditure savings, not debt. We believe that we should create an era of responsible spending and, if returned to power, we plan to set up new arrangements to root out and deal with wasteful spending. We would also put together serious plans to start to reduce debt and not let it carry on rising. Germany’s fiscal stimulus was by no means a mirror of the UK version, as the German one was accompanied by a constitutional amendment that requires Germany’s debt to be reduced each year.

The foreign exchanges have passed their own verdict on the viability of the Government’s plans, with the pound losing around 30 per cent of its value last year, the largest depreciation since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, according to the Monetary Policy Committee. Investors are clearly wary about the value of the pound. We have yet to see whether this will affect the financing of the Government’s debt mountain. Other, more balanced economies are having difficulty in financing their debt and we can observe the steadily rising credit default prices telling their own story about the markets’ view of the UK.

I have just three questions for the Minister. First, the convergence programme notes that unemployment has risen to 5.75 per cent, but that has already been overtaken by the official November figure of 6.1 per cent. Commentators now expect that to rise to over 10 per cent. What assumptions about unemployment were made in the PBR and what impact will each 1 per cent above that forecast add to the borrowing requirement?

Secondly, the PBR estimated that next year the Government would have to borrow an eye-watering £118 billion, the highest figure as a proportion of GDP on record. All the indications are that the sum will turn out to be even higher. Are the Government confident that they can raise this debt at a reasonable price?

Thirdly, the Government have announced tax rises for those on higher incomes with a new 45 per cent tax rate, thus breaking new Labour’s promise when it came into power. The IFS has already warned that the impact of this could be negative. Will the Minister give an assurance today that the Government will not raise top rates further?

The submission to the EU is a sorry document. It shows the depths to which nearly 11 years of Labour misrule have taken us. The Government used to blame everything bad on what happened before 1997; now they blame the rest of the world. The truth is that they inherited an economy that was growing strongly, with a stable currency and low inflation, and they have completely blown it.

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his explanation of the Pre-Budget Report.

The report’s starting point is the overall economic outlook, which it sets out. Its prediction was that this year we would see a fall in GDP of between 0.75 and 1.25 per cent but that this would be more than offset in 2010 by an increase of between 1.5 and 2 per cent. This is clearly far too optimistic, both in the size of the fall in GDP and the speed of the turn round. It is worth reminding ourselves of the speed of the collapse of the economy last year. The first two quarters saw an average growth of 0.1 per cent; the third quarter saw a reduction in GDP of 0.6 per cent; and the fourth a reduction of 1.5 per cent. So in 2008 in total, GDP fell by 1.9 per cent. The Government believe that this year we will see a fall of 1.25 per cent, which would make in total a fall of about 3 per cent, peak to trough. Does anyone believe that we will see such a small fall peak to trough? Virtually all commentators are now talking about a fall, peak to trough, of at least 5 per cent. I suspect that 5 per cent is now a rather optimistic forecast.

The Minister was at great pains to set out, as the Government have done at every point, how important the international component of this crisis is. He has suggested, as the Prime Minister has many times, that we were almost passive victims of a crisis, of a whirlwind that somehow started internationally. Clearly the collapse of the sub-prime housing market in the United States started the crisis, but to claim that it is entirely, or even mainly, made abroad is surely wrong. It has been exacerbated in the UK to a considerable extent by the recklessness of UK banks; by the recklessness, frankly, of individuals encouraged by the banks to ratchet up levels of debt which were unsustainable; and by the collusion of the Government in the entire process, given their absolute determination to take credit for every increase in GDP as though they had personally engineered it.

It has also been exacerbated by the complete inadequacy of the regulatory authorities, particularly the FSA, which have lacked rigour, decisiveness and determination to take action to prick the bubble at its earliest stages. I do not intend to deal with many of the detailed issues on regulation today as I feel we have done them slightly to death in our debates on the Banking Bill in recent weeks.

The fall in GDP is mirrored by the fall in the robustness of the public finances. Just as the GDP forecast is now looking wildly optimistic, so too are the forecasts the Government have produced in the Pre-Budget Report. The PBR itself shows how quickly things can go south. It reports that between the Budget and the Pre-Budget Report the projected deficit in the year increased from £42.5 billion to £77.6 billion, so over that period the Government’s own view of the deficit has nearly doubled. As the noble Baroness said, they now predict £118 billion in 2009-10. That is clearly a significant underestimate.

What are the consequences of that, and how worried should we be? The Conservatives are very concerned about the views and the role of the IMF; the noble Lord, Lord Ryder, has already introduced the IMF into the debate. I ask the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, who will be winding up for the Conservatives, to tell us about their view of the future role of the IMF in the UK economy. According to the leader of the Conservatives, Mr Cameron, Britain is running the risk of being forced to go to the IMF cap in hand. According to the Shadow Secretary of State for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, such a suggestion is not realistic. If the Conservatives aspire to be the next Government, we ought to be told about their views and policy on the IMF’s likely future role.

Having set out the financial and economic outlook, the Government then took steps in the Pre-Budget Report to deal with it. We support in principle the concept of a fiscal stimulus. We do not agree with the noble Baroness’s assertion that credit is the only problem facing the UK economy. Is she really suggesting that the levels of borrowing that were being undertaken last year were sustainable? Is she saying that there was no bubble to burst? Is she saying that the banks should be lending on commercial property, on housing and on a whole raft of matters at the level that they were last year? I hardly think so, because that would hardly be responsible. I am also amazed at the assertion that the way out of the problem, other than extending credit, is expenditure savings. I thought that all the lessons of history were that during a downturn, when consumers and business are struggling, it makes sense for the Government to take up some of the slack through a fiscal stimulus.

That does not mean that we agree with the detailed stimulus that the Government have introduced. In our view, the VAT reduction, costing £12.5 billion, is an ineffective way of stimulating the economy, not least because nearly all of that, and nearly all the other measures that the Government took, relate to current, rather than capital, spending. We believe that a fiscal stimulus should be concentrated on the capital side. The Government’s own admission is that of the 1.1 per cent of GDP that the measures in the Pre-Budget Report inject into the economy, only 0.2 per cent of GDP relates to capital spending. That is inadequate.

The size of the VAT cut is almost irrelevant now, because it pales into insignificance next to the other measures with regard to the banking sector that the Government either had already taken at the time of the Pre-Budget Report or have taken since. Paragraph 2.67 on page 32 of the report sets out how the Government had already made commitments of £66 billion to the banks between the Budget and the Pre-Budget Report over that period. There is a £37 billion recapitalisation, which is the headline figure, but then there is £21 billion for refinancing the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, £5.7 billion working capital to Bradford & Bingley and a payment of over £5 billion for retail depositors in Bradford & Bingley and the Icelandic banks. That is a huge amount. It dwarfs the VAT figure by a factor of well over five to one. Therefore, the VAT cut, whatever its merits, is only one small part of the picture.

Since the Budget, we have had the Mandelson announcement of several weeks ago, the Chancellor’s announcement of last week and the second Mandelson announcement this afternoon. We share the concern which the Treasury’s Select Committee has expressed that a raft of measures with huge public expenditure commitments is being dribbled out daily and that we, if not the Government, will lose track of quite where we are. The Treasury Select Committee suggested that the Government should follow business practice and produce a quarterly statement of their expenditure, particularly in these areas. That seems to be an extremely sensible proposal. I hope that the Minister will say something about the Government’s response to the Treasury Select Committee report today. The table in the Pre-Budget Report to which I referred is a good model of how that kind of reporting to Parliament could be undertaken in future.

I do not intend to trawl in detail through the announcements of recent days and since the Pre-Budget Report, but perhaps I might press the Minister in respect of the bank lending agreements, which were reported last week. I asked him then whether all the banks had agreed to participate in the bank lending agreements. Perhaps I might ask him also about the scale of the Government’s intervention in seeking to influence the scope of bank lending. We are faced with a potential collapse of the social housing market. A number of housing associations whose loans come up for renegotiation are in danger of being faced with a fivefold increase in the interest rate spread that they are expected to bear. There is a suggestion that some of them will find that very difficult. Do the Government’s lending agreements with the banks in their view enable them to go into the banks and suggest that, for this kind of lending, the increase in interest rates which they might otherwise charge be moderated? Or is it the Government’s view that the cost of lending is entirely up to the banks? This is an area where potentially considerable grief is coming around the corner and where the Government could use their influence with the banks to have a major impact during the short period ahead, when many of the loans are due to be renegotiated.

We support the concept of a fiscal stimulus but are critical of the nature of the stimulus that the Government have adopted. We looked at what one could do with £12.5 billion, which in our view could have been better spent on investment and contributing to meeting the carbon reduction targets which the Government have set. For £12.5 billion, you could, for example, fund a five-year programme to insulate every school; you could fund insulation and energy efficiency for 1 million homes, with a £1,000 subsidy for 1 million more; you could build 40,000 extra zero-carbon social houses; you could buy 700 new train carriages; you could reopen old railway lines and stations; you could electrify the Great Western and Midland main lines and begin the Liverpool light rail network; and you could install energy and money-saving smart meters in every home. That seems to be the kind of fiscal stimulus which really makes sense and has a long-term benefit for the country.

I think that we can all agree that we are in the middle of a financial and economic blizzard not seen in our lifetimes. This Pre-Budget Report already has the feel of a historic document. We now await the Budget to see how much further the Government’s finances have deteriorated since the autumn and what further steps they plan to take to recognise the scale of the current economic crisis.

My Lords, we have an exceptional economic situation, but, however serious it is, the media are seeking to make it worse—of that there is little doubt. You would believe from listening to and reading the media that it was the end of the world. However, as Kenneth Clarke said, it is not a financial calamity that we face but a serious situation.

I never thought that I would quote from the Evening Standard, but Anthony Hilton said last week:

“When one hedge fund manager … tells you ‘the country is bankrupt’ and another, the American Jim Rogers, says Britain is finished, you can be sure of one thing—they probably both have a massive short position in sterling and will profit mightily if they can engineer its fall”.

When I spoke at Question Time in the House the other day, my noble friend Lord Myners spoke of the benefits of stopping the ban on shorting. I asked him to list the benefits of shorting. He overlooked the request—I know that he is very busy—but will he come back to it and tell us the benefits of shorting? I have not been able to see many.

The Opposition have the right, and indeed the duty, to criticise the Government, and I do not blame them for that. However, often they appear to be attacking not just the Government but the country, which we all want to succeed. Today, the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested no serious alternative solution to what the Government are proposing. Her only proposal seemed to be to cut public expenditure—now, in the middle of a recession. That makes no sense at all. Public expenditure may eventually have to be cut—I spent five years doing it, much to my regret at the time. However, doing it in the middle of a recession is not a solution; it would make the matter much worse, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, was right to say.

I turn briefly to the Pre-Budget Report, because that is what we are debating. It had to make forecasts, because the Treasury is obliged to do so. However, it is basically guessing, as everybody else is guessing, what is going to happen in the next year or so. As the noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out, the Chancellor said that towards the end of the year, there will be an end to the recession and a slight beginning of the upturn. I have always said that I hope that the Chancellor and the Pre-Budget Report will turn out to be correct, but I have my doubts still.

The central question today is what we do about the serious economic crisis. A fiscal stimulus is right, although, like the noble Lord, Lord Newby, I would not have chosen the VAT cut. However, I understand why it was chosen—it could be done quickly, by regulation, and, in terms of whether it is successful, it can be easily reversed, as was intended. Whether I agree with the family benefit figure of £200, I am not sure, but at least the money is going into the economy as a stimulus, and this cannot be reversed. However, it seems to me that a great part of the stimulus must be capital investment on a major scale.

The central problem remains the banks. Eventually there will have to be stronger regulation; that will have to happen; but for now we need a proper functioning of the banks, which is what the Government seek to achieve by stabilising the banking system. So far, they do not seem to be having too great an effect. The Government are right to seek to put large sums of money into the banks.

My noble friend did not refer to one major area to which the Governor of the Bank of England referred recently, when he said that very substantial sums would be put into the banks by way of buying bonds. I shall quote what he is supposed to have said, which was reported in the Financial Times. He said:

“The Bank of England will start to buy corporate bonds in large quantities”.

I declare an interest, as I have a few—good quality ones, I hasten to add. Another report said that there would be £50 billion of such bonds to increase liquidity. I am delighted to see, and would like to see, increased liquidity in the banks, but I should be glad if my noble friend would tell us whether this is true. Does he agree with the Governor of the Bank of England, or was he talking off the top of his head about something that he would like to do at some time or other? How would he do it? Is he talking about buying new or existing bonds? What exactly did he have in mind? He also talked about “unconventional unconventional measures”. Maybe the Financial Times got it wrong, as the media can occasionally, but that is apparently what he said.

The real problem we face is how much it is all going to cost. My noble friend gave us some figures for borrowing for this year and next year and they were very large. I fear that it could be even larger, but I do not fear it as much as doing nothing to stimulate the banking system and the economy. If it has to be slightly higher and takes slightly longer to repay and to get the borrowing down again, we could live with that better than we could with not doing anything, resulting in an even longer and deeper recession. I support the Government on that. It would be a disaster if we did nothing and an even greater disaster if we did not spend this money.

We are asked what the true cost would be—what the banks would cost us. We do not know; nobody can answer the question, because nobody knows what the banks’ balance sheets are like or should be like. I read in the Financial Times, which is one of my favourite newspapers, as noble Lords will realise, that the auditors are very worried about the certificates that they have to give. I am not surprised; they should be worried, because in the past they have given clear certificates and the following day the banks have written off billions. The Financial Times tells us again:

“The City regulator is holding talks with top auditors to try to ensure banks are not destabilised by accountants making a qualified judgment on annual accounts”.

It is perfectly true that any qualification of an audit certificate on any company would virtually ensure its bankruptcy. What has been the result of those talks? It is not clear to me what auditors can say. The only way in which they can solve this terrible difficulty for the banks and for auditors is fully to state the extent of the toxic assets, whether they have been written off or not and to what extent they have been written off. If we do not know that, we will never know the true cost of what we have to put into the banks and the extent of their deficits. I hope that that can be done, but again I have my doubts.

The other main question is: who will manage the banks if we are left with a majority in a lot of them or full nationalisation? My noble friend is quoted—rightly in my view—as saying that he would prefer that the banks were not nationalised. I am not sure that Ministers and civil servants are the best kind of people to run the banking system. However, from what we have seen of those who have been running our banks does not inspire much confidence.

In my noble friend’s article in the Financial Times last week, he said that we need an effective commercial banking sector. That would be better than nationalisation. I agree with him, but the central word is “effective”. If it is not effective, inevitably there will have to be nationalisation, whether we like it or not. One can hardly be confident that the people running the banks will be effective commercially in running them. I would like to think that the new people will be. Perhaps it would be better if my noble friend Lord Myners retired and went to run a bank. He may prefer it: I see him smiling and I believe that he should do so.

It is essential that the media and the Official Opposition stop talking the country down—they can talk the Government down if they must. But it is essential that the Government get the money quickly into the banks, that the banks lend it quickly to each other and to the country and that we have a fiscal stimulus that really works, even if it costs a bit more. If we do that, we can prove all the Jeremiahs wrong.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, on once again making a comprehensive and telling speech, which this side of the House fully supports. I am not going to follow necessarily the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, who always speaks a lot of common sense and commands the House’s attention. I want to concentrate in a few brief remarks on the impact of the crisis and indeed the Pre-Budget Report on industry.

Earlier today, your Lordships’ House heard from the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, the Secretary of State for Business, about support for the automobile industry. That is certainly welcome. He said that support was to prevent a loss of skills and technology in that industry. The noble Lord assured noble Lords that Her Majesty’s Government would take further action within the limits of the announced fiscal stimulus in the Pre-Budget Report for other industries that are necessary for our industrial well-being and that need help. I hope that I have summarised what the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, said.

I wish to raise briefly the serious financial plight of early-stage high-technology innovative companies in the United Kingdom, given the present financial crisis and indeed the outlook for 2009-10. Those companies—the United Kingdom is renowned for its wealth of such innovative companies—are pre-revenue; they are often spun out of our great universities to exploit potentially world-beating new technologies. I declare an interest as chairman of Cambridge University’s technology transfer office. That is not a paid job; it is pro bono. I am a board director of a number of small technology companies. I speak with a little experience and a great deal of feeling. These companies and this sector of our economy are in a very serious position because venture capital funding has completely stopped. For a variety of reasons, those who normally provide funding are nervous about continuing to support existing companies, let alone new companies, and universities throughout the country are finding it difficult to support existing spin-out companies because of the pressure on their own university resources. If no government action is taken—I intend to suggest sensible action in just a second—some forecasters have said that at least half of all the high-tech start-up companies will die during this year. That forecast is not unreasonable.

The new Minister for Trade and Investment, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, visited Cambridge last week. He was told about the squeeze on venture capital and therefore on the lifeblood of the region’s technology and, particularly, biotechnology companies.

How to assist? It is not about tax, although I pay credit to the value of research and development credits paid back through HMRC, which certainly has helped the development of many young start-up companies. It is not about bank lending because these companies are at too early a stage to benefit from the credit scheme the Government have announced, and which was referred to on a number of occasions by my noble friend on the Front Bench. It is about the availability of risk capital.

The Government talk about a fiscal stimulus of £3 billion of government capital spend that will be brought forward from next year into this year. Of that, £442 million is to accelerate projects to improve further and higher education and to bring forward development of scientific research facilities. I say to the Minister that, although this capital expenditure infusion is welcome, unless some of these resources are devoted to the research and development base of the high-technology companies, a lot of the building work is going to be wasted. We have to save the lifeblood of our research and development capacity in this country for the future.

I believe that the solution is an extension of the existing public/private partnerships, which have worked extremely well. The Government’s initiative, over the years, of the enterprise capital funds has helped but is much too small. That initiative needs to be expanded. This is where matching funds come from government and the private sector to fund early-stage companies. The Technology Strategy Board is now under the leadership of the noble Lord, Lord Drayson. I pay tribute to what he has done already in seeking to expand its work, but, frankly, what is on offer is a pinprick; it is extremely modest in terms of the crisis now facing the industry.

The European Commission has acted swiftly, and I pay tribute to it, in approving improved aid to high-technology companies, particularly in the form of risk capital, where the partnership ratio can go as high as 70 per cent from the public sector and 30 per cent from the private sector—I do not suggest that that is a standard rule. However, the Commission has responded quickly and we should be grateful.

Green technology is one of the areas that could certainly benefit. Her Majesty’s Opposition, as the Minister will know, propose the creation of a green-tech start-up fund with matching funds coming from the private and the public sector. That is to be welcomed. Her Majesty’s Government have £535 million of capital spending in this fiscal stimulus for work specifically in the environment. Some of that money should be devoted to emerging new technology to help meet our renewable energy targets in 2020. We cannot rely on existing technology, whether it is wind, solar or tidal. We need more research and it must be done urgently. In summary, more public resources within the fiscal stimulus already announced should be devoted to saving our innovative technology industry, which is in dire straits.

I support the recommendation of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts for a £1 billion early stage fund. It is an entirely non-political body, chaired by Sir Christopher Powell. That proposal has been put to the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, the Minister for Science and Innovation. I hope that it will receive sympathetic consideration.

Moreover, environmental schemes deserve priority. They will keep innovation alive and meet the climate change targets. The noble Lord, Lord Smith, the chairman of the Environment Agency, who is not in his place, has been quoted extensively in the press over the past few days as warmly supporting the call for further funding for environmental schemes.

If the noble Lord, Lord Myners, is not able to respond to these comments, I hope that he will at least pass them on to his colleagues in other departments. I look forward to his response.

My Lords, Lord Keynes was addressing a group of bankers and asked them to raise their hand if they had ever printed more notes than their gold represented. A forest of hands went up. Keynes foresaw that there are times, like the present economic crisis, when Governments have no alternative but to create artificial wealth to replace at least some of the overvalued wealth that created the problem in the first place.

As other noble Lords have mentioned, it is an excellent thing that we are not in the euro. It enables us to do what we want to do to the benefit of our economy. In a paper-currency world, money is credit and credit is money. Credit is given on the assumption that its value and more will be recovered. I am sure your Lordships are aware that when a bank raises £1 billion in capital, it is in a position to lend £10 billion worth of credit, and does, on the assumption that it will not all be called for at the same time and it is confident that the risk is spread. The key word is “confidence” and the gearing effect of credit relies on confidence.

Conversely, if the collateral that underpinned that credit decision suddenly disappears, we have a situation, like today, where the ungearing is dramatic and liquidity, the life blood of economic activity, is massively drained from the system. We witness a colossal reduction of credit, due not only to the sub-prime losses of the worldwide overvaluation of property but also the destruction of collateral consequent to the collapse of share prices—a double whammy of a self-feeding collapse in confidence.

Under these circumstances, it is perfectly right and proper to put back by quantitative easing, or “printing money”—call it what you will—the essential life blood of liquidity to prevent the patient from haemorrhaging to death. The velocity of circulation, the heartbeat of the patient, has to be kept going. Professor Milton Friedman, the arch-monetarist whom I had the privilege of meeting, suggested using aircraft to sprinkle the country with bucket-loads of notes. The concept of printing money is abhorrent but 10 years of deflation would be far worse, as the great slumps of the 1920s and 1930s showed.

In the 18th century, in an effort to cure the patient’s malady, doctors got it all wrong by bleeding a person already haemorrhaging. This is not the time to make the situation worse by cutting back, other than by the elimination of waste. It is the time for pumping liquidity back into the system, the art being to recognise that, as the economy recovers, interest rates will need to be raised in good time to prevent the patient overheating. National Governments are understandably afraid of doing this in case the international finger of scorn is pointed at them, and we have partly witnessed this by a run on the pound. However, if it is done on a global scale, as Keynes broadly suggested, everyone is in the same boat. We should reflate simultaneously with the EU, but that is unlikely.

To update Keynes’s concept, the group of 20, shortly to meet, should authorise the IMF to issue loans to member countries of up to 5, 6 or 7 per cent of their GNP. Such loans could carry 2 per cent interest over 30 years. These, in turn, would be lent on by national Treasuries to their own banks, enabling them to lend at, say, 4 per cent interest to their clients. Anyone who cannot afford to borrow at 4 per cent or thereabouts should not borrow at all. Today, as has been well said, it is not the cost of money that is the problem but the lack of it.

Using such a system, over 30 years the principal will have been repaid as interest and the IMF could quietly write off the loan in the same manner as it currently writes off loans to third-world countries. Either way, it is essential to print money at this stage and it is excellent to see that Mr Ben Bernanke is pursuing this line in the United States. We should follow in unison with others. Like the USA, we should be putting money into infrastructure improvements, most of which would be of long-term economic benefit. It was crazy to cancel the aircraft carrier orders at this stage, and expenditure on desperately needed road repairs would have an immediate beneficial effect.

Economic fashions come and go, and very few look watertight 10 years after they are implemented. One should be humble with any prognosis. As Keynes said, one should pronounce on economic matters with a contrite heart. However, the current concept that we have to reduce interest rates to near zero is a complete fallacy. The unintended consequences of so doing will in fact negate any possible benefit, as low interest rates in Japan over a decade clearly illustrated. That did not lead to Japan's recovery; it led, partly through the financial “carry trade”, to cheap money for the rest of the world and a virtually stagnant economy in Japan. Consumers are simply not encouraged to spend their life savings if they get no interest on them; they conserve their battered wealth.

There is confusion caused by two contradictory policies: first, a desire for very cheap money to enable the banks to repair their balances; and, secondly, a wish to increase personal consumption, as shown by the Government's VAT cut. But the last thing any Government should do is turn off the expenditure of tens of millions of savers and pensioners who rely on the dividend interest from their savings. It will, of course, also decimate charitable giving, and the work of many charities will cease because they too heavily rely on dividend flow. The concept that we have to have low interest rates to prevent deflation simply does not stand up against the realities of a pound that has depreciated 25 to 30 per cent against the dollar and the euro, and where, before long, our import prices are bound to rise and inflation will be compounded by the reimposition of the VAT that has been cut.

The Shadow Monetary Policy Committee, an august body of academics, thought that interest rates had been cut enough to 2.5 per cent. I hope that the Bank of England and the Treasury between them will reconsider the damaging and unintended consequences of the existing level and further cuts.

I come to the primary purpose of this debate: our financial relationship with Europe. Recent parliamentary Questions have shown that our membership, after all rebates, costs us at least £4 billion a year, apart from the appalling inefficiencies that the ever-growing burden of EU regulations brings to this economy. The French, needless to say, are substantial beneficiaries. Our contribution of £4 billion a year is a lot of money, and many of the rebates we get are for purposes that our own Treasury would not dream of sanctioning. So the real loss to this country, in net terms, is considerably more.

However, this pales into insignificance against the unquantifiable cost of unnecessary regulations, which bring a huge additional burden: it must be tens of billions of pounds a year. To name but four of the culprits, there are the working time directive, the chemicals directive, the height at work directive and the pesticides directive. Now there is even compulsory holiday pay for people who have been on sick leave for up to five years, there is a limit on doctors’ working hours, and electronic implants are to be compulsorily put into Britain’s 10 million sheep. All these things, like the premature closing down of our coal power stations just when we need them, chisel away and do real economic damage to our flexible economy.

It was not as if we could do anything about it, anything to rectify it in any way. Here, Parliament, through its scrutiny committees, has tried to influence that legislation, but its work has been almost totally ignored. Hundreds of recommendations have been made to improve EU legislation and the hard fact is that our scrutiny committees have been wasting their time. Frustratingly, there is no satisfactory way of rectifying that regulation. This democratic safety valve simply does not work.

Your Lordships will recall that the American War of Independence was triggered on the slogan, “No taxation without representation”. Today we have the equivalent: “Regulation without rectification”. Increasingly, our citizens in the front line of business do not like it and we ignore their rumbling discontent at our peril.

Our blind and damaging conformity to EU regulations is like an army marching over the cliff because no one has the courage to question the command. Idealism is a wonderful thing, but blind idealism is damaging this country beyond belief. Day by day and week by week we witness the economy of this country being impoverished by the endless attrition caused by unnecessary EU regulations. Few in Westminster are really aware of what is going on; the political class lives above it all. Eagles seldom know of the habits of moles. I love my country and I hate to see it ruined by bureaucratic nonsenses imposed by non-elected, totally impractical officials.

The denial of the means of rectification is a denial of sovereignty, and without sovereignty democracy cannot exist. We really must re-examine our financial and wider relationships with the EU.

My Lords, much has already been said, and I will be brief. When I spoke in your Lordships’ House in the debate on the economy after the Chancellor’s proposals for the economic recovery of this country had been revealed in the Pre-Budget Report, I tried to make clear quite how much of the difficulty in which we found ourselves could be laid at the door of this Government. I said that much of what was proposed would not work, and I have been very public since in declaring that the 2.5 per cent VAT cut, which has been referred to often, was a complete and utter waste of public money—£12.5 billion of it. I may have been right in my prediction. The VAT cut was made only because it could be done quickly, not because anyone thought that it would work terribly well.

However, I should like to take a different tack. The huge increase in public borrowing which this Government propose has been made necessary by their utter inability to evaluate risk. It is some time since I heard the words, “We are among the best placed countries to spend our way out of recession”. We were not; we are not; and, as my noble friend Lady Noakes has said, even the EU economic unit declares us to be among the worst placed to weather this particular storm, having kept nothing aside for the proverbial rainy day.

I also predicted in my speech that the actions being taken would inevitably weaken the pound, and so it has proved. The financial world is betting that the Government’s plans will fail. Part of reason for this is that the financial world believes that the plans are inherently over-risky and conceived on the hoof without proper evaluation. It was without a doubt right to prop up the banks, but, given that the Government had a year to look at the situation at Northern Rock, which their lack of supervision caused to develop, how could they have poured so much money into the banks without a proper investigation of the loan books? That was very risky. How could the Government have poured so much money into the banks without any formal guarantee of ensuing lending patterns? That was very risky.

How could the Government have proposed the VAT cut without any research as to its possible stimulus effect? That was extremely risky. On the latest bailout package, how could they, when preference shares were converted to equity, thus denying the taxpayer their much-vaunted return, have moved again without a clear understanding of the loan books and future ratios? Again, that was very risky. It is simply not the case, for example, that all of RBS’s toxic loans arrived with ABN AMRO, which had its own fair share of them. Not understanding that sort of thing reveals a lack of knowledge of the true situation, which is very risky indeed. Lastly, what bright spark decided a week ago last Friday to honour the deadline for removing the ban on the short selling of financial institutions, and nearly brought Barclays to its knees in the process? That was very risky.

I have to say that, had any business leader I know, however hazardous the circumstances in which he found himself, loaded up his company with that amount of risk, he would expect and deserve to be fired.

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my noble friend Lord Blyth, whose industrial experience is hugely respected in your Lordships’ House.

This is my first chance to welcome the Minister to your Lordships’ House and I do so with great pleasure. His distinguished presence highlights the lack of talent available for key government posts in the other place.

The Prime Minister and his colleagues claim that a global recession is solely responsible for our economic condition. This is a travesty of the truth and the markets know it. The Prime Minister created in Britain a debt boom, a housing boom and a spending boom. He splashed during the boom; his kitty was empty for the bust. By last July, well before the collapse in the markets, Britain’s public expenditure was out of control. Earlier, in March 2008, the Chancellor, in his Budget, forecast a £43 billion borrowing requirement for the year. Yet, after only six months, and before the collapse in the markets, it had reached £37.6 billion. These were the worst figures since 1946—so much for the fiscal sustainability to which the Minister referred earlier.

The IMF warned the Government before the markets collapsed about the scale of their spending. Simultaneously, the EU Commission criticised the Government for encroaching the deficit allowed by the so-called Maastricht rules. Public finances were on course to register a record deficit even when the boom was in flow. Last July, before the markets collapsed, the Independent—hardly a Conservative chronicle—declared in an editorial:

“All the signs are that Mr Brown intends to spend very large amounts of taxpayers’ money in a doomed effort to save his political skin. … the Government has lost direction and has no plan other than a spending spree financed by borrowing on the never-never”.

It is small wonder that spending was out of control before the collapse in the markets. After all, for eight—yes, eight—successive years under Messrs Brown and Darling, government expenditure has exceeded Treasury forecasts. I repeat, for eight years running government expenditure has exceeded Treasury forecasts.

When making his PBR Statement in November, the Chancellor’s first duty was reassure investors and the markets that serious measures would be taken to restore financial rectitude as soon as circumstances allowed. Instead, the Chancellor, compounding his March folly, relied once more on political spin against, I sense, the advice of his Treasury officials. He predicted that the economy would start recovering in the third quarter of this year. This flabbergasted the markets because the IMF, the CBI, the NIESR and a host of other organisations had already reached opposite and more reliable conclusions. The Chancellor failed to construct a credible fiscal framework for his policies in the PBR in November. Consequently, sterling again came under pressure and, on the day after the Statement, even the Labour-tender Financial Times, so much loved by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, said that,

“the Treasury has an uphill battle to regain trust that it will bring public borrowing back down to a sustainable level. Years of fudging and fiddling have already undermined their credibility”.

That was the Financial Times the day after the PBR Statement. An ominous question mark hangs over Treasury public spending forecasts because, for eight successive years, it looks as though they have been twisted for political ends in the face of advice from officials.

The result of the Chancellor’s fantasy finance is that the pound’s fall has been greater than at any stage since sterling left the gold standard in 1931. It is no surprise that the German Finance Minister, a social democrat, described Mr Brown’s economic policy as “breathtaking” and “crass”. Nor is it a surprise that central bank governors, such as Mr Mersch of Luxembourg, raise eyebrows when lectured by the Prime Minister about saving the world.

Of course, Mr Mersch knows, as do the other international investors and the markets, that it is not just the fecklessness in British public spending that occurred before the collapse in the markets but the growing list of off-balance-sheet items that imperil Britain’s present and future. PFIs, Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley, Network Rail and the extra cost of net contributions to the EU are part of this debate. Our net contribution to the EU next year was to be £6.5 billion, but not any more. The collapse of sterling has added £3 billion to that figure, bringing it to £9.5 billion. Of course, there is also the question of public sector pensions, as well as age-related liabilities. They all undermine our ratings. Public sector pensions are the heaviest weight of our hidden millstones off- balance sheet. In October, the independent Pensions Policy Institute published a report, which stated:

“It is often assumed that better pensions in the public sector make up for lower pay. Although a job-for-job type comparison of pay is difficult to make between private and public sectors”,

the evidence suggests that pay in the public sector is not lower than pay in the private sector across the board.

Gold-plated pensions are becoming indefensible, not least because Mr Brown has increased the number of people dependent for work on the public sector by nearly 1 million. We should remember that this was the same Mr Brown who raided private sector pensions. Annual annuities from public sector pensions are now about £17,000 a year, compared with about £1,100 per annum in the private sector. Let us not forget that in his own last Budget Mr Brown hid £45 billion of public sector pension costs. This was not an annual figure; it was an incremental increase in one single year.

Last July, in the Second Reading of the Finance Bill in your Lordships’ House, before the collapse in the markets, I submitted that the reordering of our public finances would dominate the time of the next Prime Minister and Chancellor from the day they took office to the exclusion of much else. How they dealt with fiscal policy, I submitted, would define the scale of their success, and the events of the past few months have reinforced my argument.

After the next general election, I look forward to the publication of a White Paper on the Government’s expenditure plans along the lines of the respected document produced by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon, who is in his place. This set out the true picture of the public finances and stated how my noble and learned friend intended to rectify the profligacy of his predecessors. Until such a document is published by a new Prime Minister and a new Chancellor, the market and international investors will lack trust in the figures provided by the British Government.

I hope that Treasury officials are dusting off copies of my noble and learned friend’s 1979 White Paper. Only when another such document is published by a new Government, determined to set a credible framework for our public finances and dispensing with the scourge of spin, will faith be restored in the Ministers running our economy and in the august Treasury itself. As a former Minister in that department, I know how much its officials prefer to serve Ministers whose forecasts and pronouncements are accurate and can be respected by the markets.

My Lords, the important point in the Pre-Budget Report is that we are witnessing a greater instability than at any time for generations. The real problem is that investors assumed that the considerable and long-term growth rate would continue indefinitely, and so did the banks. That was one of the major problems that we must face, because in their efforts to win much of the business from investors the banks provided loans at exceptionally low rates of interest. As a result, so many investors went much further than they would have done in the past.

Thus, together with the sharp rise in unemployment, recent purchasers suffered an important decline in their financial position. A major consequence has been the strong downturn in the housing market. The question facing us is: how long will the downturn last? The Prime Minister has been foremost in anticipating the consequences and size of the economic downturn, and his approach to providing financing was echoed throughout the financial world.

Introducing 15 per cent VAT for the current year was an important step in countering the downturn, more so than a number of your Lordships feel. The advantage of that move was its quick injection; there are not many ways of spending money to get the results that are possible in that way. That quick injection into consumer spending was an important factor. It may not have been seen as an important step, but it was a change in the economic situation—one which is difficult to effect quite so rapidly in other ways.

Other methods can be introduced, but the delay in their effect on the economy would have limited consequences on the situation. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, pointed out that there were other ways of spending that £12.5 billion and suggested building homes as one of them. Yet a number of things that were mentioned by the noble Lord, and by others, take much longer to produce a result. The great advantage of having 15 per cent VAT was that we got it straight away.

The Government’s proposals are to support confidence in the banking system. Their tasks are to protect depositors’ money and to safeguard the interests of taxpayers. The Government are also helping small and medium-sized businesses, through the support of bank lending. They have also brought forward £3 billion of capital spending into the current year; more has been announced today.

My noble friend Lord Myners has said that banks, and their “grossly over-rewarded” executives, are partly to blame for causing the economic recession. He said that,

“the golden days of huge bonuses”

were over, and that executives had,

“no sense of the broader society around them”.

He said that the banking system came close to collapse last October, before the Government’s £500 billion rescue package, and that,

“There were two or three hours when things felt very bad, nervous and fragile”.

The point he made was well accepted. He said that major depositors were trying to withdraw and were willing to pay penalities for early withdrawal from a number of large banks. He continued:

“They are people who have no sense of the broader society around them. There is quite a lot of annoyance and much of that is justified. Let us be quite clear: there has been mismanagement of our banks”.

That has been one of the fundamental things that no one ever expected. People trusted banks; they gave their money and thought that there would be no problem about getting it out whenever they wanted it, and with interest. To see the banks decline in this way was quite unexpected.

The United Kingdom is now in recession for the first time since 1991. Official government figures have confirmed that. Gross domestic product fell by 1.5 per cent in the last three months of 2008 after a 0.6 per cent drop in the previous quarter. That means that the widely accepted definition of a recession—two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth—has been met. It represents the biggest quarter-on-quarter decline since 1980, and a 1.8 per cent fall on the same quarter a year ago. The worse-than-expected contraction sent sterling to a 24-year low against the dollar with £1 buying $1.35. Meanwhile the FTSE 100 index fell almost 2 per cent below 4,000 points. The figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that manufacturing made the largest contribution to the slowdown, contracting by 4.6 per cent despite hopes that the weak pound would help exporters. That was an expectation, and we have the whole of this year to see how much it will lead to an increase in exports. With the exception of agriculture, all elements of the economy shrank from the previous three months.

The fall in GDP was slightly steeper than most analysts had been expecting. The downturn was broad-based, and it has been said that the bleak manufacturing data ended any prospect of this being a white-collar recession that would largely escape manufacturers. Chancellor Alistair Darling said that the figures underlined the scale of the challenges the Government faced. He said:

“It’s going to be a difficult year for families in the UK. We need to go about the problem with a sense of purpose”.

He said that countries across the globe were facing recession and that the crisis could be solved better and quicker if other Governments also acted to stimulate their economies. We hope to see other countries coming into the same fold. What started as a crisis in the financial sector continues to infect the wider economy.

Unemployment is accelerating sharply with large numbers of people now out of work. The housing market remains severely depressed and retail sales are weak. Even though December’s retail figures were better than expected—growing by 1.6 per cent—this was driven by heavy price-discounting and should be treated with caution. Andrew Smith, the chief economist at KPMG, said:

“It is difficult to see why things should improve in the foreseeable future”.

Efforts to prevent the recession deepening have been widespread, although critics say they have not gone far enough. The Bank of England has aggressively cut interest rates to 1.5 per cent, which is aimed at driving down the cost of lending and making it easier for consumers and businesses to access credit. However, banks have been reluctant to lend sufficiently, despite a £37 billion injection into major banks, and a scheme to offer insurance to banks against potential losses on risky loans. The interesting question that faces us today is: how is the pressure being put on the banks to carry on the sort of business that they have been producing for so long and so well?

My Lords, the debate is taking place on the basis of the Pre-Budget Report, a massive 232 page document, which the Government and the Minister suggest is an appropriate document for European Union members. Although it is dated November 2008, it has been completely overtaken by events and by a series of increases in public expenditure, which are far beyond anything any previous Chancellor of the Exchequer could possibly have envisaged.

Despite its length and scope, it has some remarkable omissions. Among the things in which one might expect European Union members to have an interest is the British Government’s policy on the exchange rate. I search in vain in this document for any mention whatever of the exchange rate. In Europe, that might be understandable because members are in the exchange rate mechanism, the monetary system of the European Union, and that is determined for them. But they certainly would have a great interest in knowing whether the recent depreciation of the pound was deliberate or even whether in cutting interest rates the Bank of England took into account the effect on the exchange rate. It is immensely relevant, for example, to the Statement made today by the noble Lord, Lord Mandelson, in relation to the motor industry. Probably the fall in the exchange rate is far more important to the competitive position of the motor industry in this country than anything that he announced. But we look in vain in this document for any indication of the Government’s policy on this matter.

Another omission from the report is any discussion of monetary policy in a sensible context. One reason why there is great confusion on this is that when the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Brown, gave what he described as independence to the Bank of England on monetary policy, he at the same time clawed back into the Treasury responsibility for debt management. I stressed that at the time, but great attention was not paid to it. This is a crucial point, which has led to great confusion.

In the present, quite heated, economic debate, we are, truth to tell, in a serious semantic mess and it is important for us to sort that out. It is very important to distinguish between monetary policy, which concerns the quantity of money, and interest rate policy, which concerns the price of money. The Minister is nodding and I am glad to see that I carry him with me. I am pursuing the line which I pursued in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, but I want to develop the argument.

The fact is that the Bank of England was not given independence on monetary policy; it was given independence on interest rate policy. But that is wrong because it was given independence, as I have said before, on a single interest rate. We have only to look at what has been happening to other interest rates recently to realise that the Bank of England certainly has not been determining interest rates; it has determined only the one rate. The reality is that the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England is completely misnamed. It is not concerned with money supply. Of course, a movement in interest rate will have an effect, but it is far from being the only, still less the most important, determinant of the money supply. It is very important that we should get this set of issues sorted out. Otherwise, there is great confusion.

Throughout the document under discussion, when it refers to “monetary policy”, it means “interest rate policy”. There is no indication of what the Government’s policy is on the money supply. That is an extraordinary change in fashion. When I was at the Treasury a long while ago, I was bedevilled all the time by M1, M2, M3, M4 or whatever. There is no mention of it at all, but it is crucially important now. We may all be Keynesians, but monetary policy still has an important role to play. In particular, there is the relationship between this enormous increase in debt that has taken place and the Government’s policy on funding.

I intervened in the noble Lord’s speech. He was kind enough to reply, saying that it was the Government’s policy fully to fund the deficit from the non-bank public. That is crucial in determining the money supply. It is not likely to result in the kind of so-called fiscal stimulus which the Government seem to envisage, because it would largely nullify the effect of the fiscal stimulus—that is to say, the debt—on the money supply. In turn, that would have an effect on aggregate demand. The Minister may wish to recant on this point when he comes to reply.

It is interesting that, suddenly, over the past few days, there are rumours, which might be the best way to put it in the press, that the Bank of England and its Monetary Policy Committee might be given some control over so-called quantitative easing. Not to put too fine a point on it, that means increasing the money supply, or printing money. Of course, there are many different ways of “printing money”. You can do it, if necessary, simply by getting a printing press; that is the easiest way of doing it. The more usual way involves the relationship between debt and funding. Is there, indeed, any intention to give the Bank of England—and, in particular, the so-called Monetary Policy Committee—something to do with monetary policy, as against interest rate policy? The real trouble is that at the moment we have no idea where responsibility for these matters lies. I do not believe that it is with the Bank of England. Presumably responsibility is with the Treasury, but we do not really know what their policy is on this point. We are in a difficult situation.

In the earlier debate I asked the Minister whether figures are available on the money supply. They certainly do not appear in this book. Since taking office the Minister has been very good in responding to various debates. If noble Lords have asked questions to which they did not get replies, he has written to them with a specific answer. We should be grateful for that; it has not always happened in the past, by any means. Indeed, it is almost an innovation. I hope the Minister will place in the Library a letter or some serious indication of the extent to which the Government believe that the supply of money will change.

I am not particularly against an increase in the money supply. I was castigated enough for it previously. It may well be what we need at this time. Clearly, the banking system, in terms of making credit available to those who need it in order to stimulate the economy, has clogged up. Despite the Government’s efforts—I pay tribute to them for this—to unblock the banking system and allow the flow of credit to proceed in wholesale markets normally, it is not happening. Therefore, it may well be that a stimulus to the money supply is the appropriate response at this time.

The great danger at present is that in stimulating the economy we build up enormous inflationary pressure for the future. That would be a very dangerous situation. We are starting from a point where inflation, even at this moment, while it has come down substantially, is still above the zero level. Interest rates have now been cut virtually to zero and, certainly in real terms, are negative.

I do not understand either how the Government are going to fund any of this enormous debt—if they do not do so at all, there will be huge inflationary pressures—or how they are going to deal with what is now an explosive situation as a result of the increase in debt. We have had no clear statement from the Government, from Mr Brown or from the Chancellor as to where we are going on the central problem of economic management. We are entitled to know that and simply fudging the issue is a dangerous thing to do.

My Lords, the House is asked to note with approval the Government’s economic assessment as set out in the Pre-Budget Report of 2008. I do not approve of it at all. As for all opposition speakers, even my initial thoughts were that the document already looked rather out of date. As many noble Lords have said, the economic outlook for 2009, even at the time of the PBR, was not particularly bright. The growth forecast then was a negative 1 per cent for 2009. But then, extraordinarily and optimistically, the Treasury forecast 1.5 to 2 per cent growth for 2010.

The 2009 forecast looks far too optimistic, especially so after the release of the fourth quarter GDP figures on Friday. As other noble Lords have mentioned, these showed a decline of 1.5 per cent in the final three months of 2008. The figure formally confirmed that we are in recession. As for this year, according to the FT of 24 January the European Commission predicted that the annual rate of growth for 2009 would be negative 2.8 per cent and the Ernst & Young ITEM Club predicted a fall of 2.7 per cent.

The Government’s GDP forecast for 2010 also looks completely optimistic. The head of the FSA, the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, who I am sorry to see has taken no part in our financial debates since the credit crunch began, said in a recent City lecture:

“I do not know whether in three months’ time or six months’ time we are going to be able to use words like ‘green shoots’ without everyone thinking ‘what an absurd thing to say’. But I do think that within two years … we will clearly be on an up path”.

Does the Minister agree with that view or with the view of the knowledgeable noble Baroness, Lady Vadera, and, in the other place, Tony McNulty, who both see green shoots coming already?

The same weak situation exists with UK public sector borrowing. Here the Government have squandered the golden legacy that they were given in 1997. How can one note with approval how the total for 2008-09 has shot up since the November PBR forecast, according to independent commentators? As has been said, the PBR forecast the 2008-09 deficit at £76 billion and the 2009-10 deficit at £118 billion, or 8 per cent of GDP. I do not know how the Minister can predict the figure for 2015-16, let alone the next two years. The highest forecast in the Treasury’s latest compilation of independent forecasts published a few days ago, which I tend to believe, indicates a full-year deficit of £90 billion in 2008-09—an increase of nearly 15 per cent in two months—and for 2009-10 the highest independent forecasters are giving a figure of £144 billion, which is a 22 per cent increase over the PBR figure.

The Government have failed since 1997 to keep back any reserve for a rainy day. We were as a result heavily in debt as a nation even before the credit crunch started and so we are in a much weaker position to react to it. Debt to GDP is now at the same level as for Spain, which has lost its Standard & Poor’s AAA credit rating. The same loss may happen for the UK.

Another problem is that the Treasury balance sheet is changing week by week. According to last Friday’s Times, the influential Treasury Select Committee has requested that in these exceptional times the Treasury must behave like a large public company and publish accounts every three months. I am in total agreement with its views.

The Government have persisted, and the Minister’s speech today is no exception, in blaming the economic crisis on the global credit crunch. They fail to take any responsibility for having built up public borrowing to a dangerously high level even before the credit crunch started. They also refuse to accept responsibility for creating a system of regulation under the tripartite regime that failed properly to monitor the risk level of the activities of banks and other financial institutions.

International concern about our weaker economic and financial position than that of the USA and the eurozone has been demonstrated, as other speakers have said, by the collapse in sterling. The pound has dropped 32 per cent against the dollar in less than six months and about 16 per cent against the euro. The Prime Minister himself said in 1992:

“A weak currency arises from a weak economy which … is the result of a weak Government”.

While a weak currency is useful for export, a precipitous fall such as we have seen against the dollar in particular can severely weaken confidence in the UK economy and scare off new overseas investors from buying UK debt. In the longer term, as my noble friend Lord Higgins said, it can have severe inflationary consequences.

Another major concern about the UK economy is the unemployment rate. UK unemployment was 1.92 million between September and November, the highest level since September 1997. December was the 11th consecutive month for which the claimant count had risen. The Ernst & Young ITEM Club, according to the Guardian on 18 January, has said that the number of people out of work will reach 3.25 million by the end of 2010 and 3.4 million the year after.

Let us now look at the fiscal measures taken by the Government. The lowering of the VAT rate from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent for 13 months is costing £12 billion in lost revenue. The measure is unlikely to work, due to the cautious nature of consumers at present. Leading accountancy firms such as Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young have criticised it, as have others, including the chief executives of Next and Marks & Spencer. Even the noble Lord, Lord Jones of Birmingham, said on 23 November:

“You drop your VAT to get them into the high street but actually, at the end of the day, if they haven’t got a job, what are they going to do?”.

The Conservative Party has decided on a much more sensible measure, which is to allow small and medium-sized businesses to defer their VAT bills for up to six months.

The Government are planning yet again to increase their favourite stealth tax, national insurance. The decision has been made to increase the employee, employer and self-employed contribution by 0.5 per cent from April 2011. Our party has come up with more sensible measures to give firms relief from their NI contributions if they hire workers who have been unemployed for three months. We have also proposed a 1 per cent cut in national insurance for six months for those firms with fewer than five employees.

The Government have temporarily deferred until April 2010 a rise in the smaller companies’ corporation tax rate, but they still wish to penalise small businesses at the very time when they need help. I remind the House that this measure was originally to be staged: in April 2007 it was 19 per cent, to be moved up in stages to 22 per cent by April 2009. What signal does that give to the vital sector of our economy, the smaller businesses? In contrast, our party plans to cut smaller companies’ corporation tax from 22p to 20p and the main rate from 28 per cent to 25 per cent.

Overall in the PBR, the shadow Chancellor has calculated that there are future tax increases—or “fiscal consolidation”, as the Minister described them—of £40 billion, or £1,500 per family, over the next Parliament, matched by the temporary giveaways of £20 billion.

Our party is offering other positive measures. It is trying to help those climbing on to the property ladder with a stamp duty holiday for first-time buyers on house purchases of up to £0.25 million, which would save 200,000 first-time buyers each year an average of £2,000 each. The Government, on the other hand, have been aggressively repossessing houses through Northern Rock, although they have now suddenly done a U-turn and are encouraging Northern Rock to lend again. Our party is helping old-age pensioners by proposing to raise their tax allowance by £2,000 to £11,490. It is helping savers by suggesting the abolition of the basic rate of tax on savings. It is planning to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million, so that the middle classes can pass on their homes without penalty.

Like my noble friend Lady Noakes, I wish the Government well in their stimulus packages, but I am uncertain whether they will work. Does the Minister believe that the examples of the Swedish banks in the 1990s and the rescue of UBS by the Swiss Government and central bank are useful models to follow?

In summary, I cannot note with approval the Government’s assessment as set out in the Pre-Budget Report as I am very concerned about the seemingly uncontrollable increase in government debt and the overoptimistic forecast for early recovery.

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend Lady Noakes that it really is pretty absurd that the United Kingdom should have to submit any report of our financial affairs to Brussels. After all, the EU’s own financial management is in a frightful mess, largely uncontrolled, wasteful and even fraudulent. My main question to the Minister is why we go on paying such huge sums to the EU at all, especially in these difficult times. In asking this question, I support the powerful speech of my noble friend Lord Vinson.

I cannot help but remember an appearance in about 1994 by the right honourable Kenneth Clarke MP, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, before your Lordships’ European Select Committee, on which I sat at the time. He was giving evidence on a report on fraud and waste in the European Union that we had produced, the latest of several reports that the committee had produced over previous years. Yes, Mr Clarke, agreed, things were indeed unacceptable; the British taxpayer really should not go on giving so much money away to such an unaccountable institution. But, he assured the committee, we could relax. The ebullient Chancellor informed us that the cavalry was coming: control of the EU’s financial impropriety and waste had just been handed over to a Mr Schmidthuber, with full powers to sort it out. That was 15 years ago; and so, to all noble Lords who claim that the EU is sorting itself out—I fear that the Minister may be among them—I have only one word to say: Schmidthuber.

Since then, we have had the frightening saga of Martha Andreasen, who became the EU’s first qualified accountant in 2002 in response to the mass resignation of the Santer Commission. She was promptly sacked for refusing to sign its fraudulent accounts and for insisting that its computer and accounting systems were incapable of producing accurate or useful figures. I am glad to say that she has recently become the treasurer of the UK Independence Party. I spoke to her this morning. She is aware of all the wonderful new procedures, systems and improvements which Brussels claims to have put in place, and her comment was, again, brief: “window-dressing”.

I therefore ask the Minister a question which I have asked several times before, although not, I think, of him. Why do we not withhold the vast sums of cash that we send to Brussels, which amount to about £9.5 billion net per annum according to the noble Lord, Lord Ryder, until an independent auditor, one of the big international accounting firms, is appointed which could account for them? Why do we not withhold our billions until that happens? I remind noble Lords that there is no independent auditor for the European Union, and its internal auditors have refused for 14 years to sign off its accounts. No institution on the planet could survive that, except in altogether disagreeable jurisdictions.

In the other place a week ago, my honourable friend Mr Philip Davies MP put this question to the Minister, Mr Ian Pearson—no relation, he would want me to assure you. He did not get the vestige of a reply. I look forward to the noble Lord’s reply and hope that he does better than his predecessors.

The developing EU is an increasingly nasty beast. It already makes most of our national laws, in a secretive process, and executes them to the exclusion of Parliament. Its court is a function of itself, and there is no appeal against its judgments. Its treatment of whistleblowers such as Mrs Andreasen is deplorable and it is becoming steadily more dismissive and aggressive towards those of us who do not agree with it. I fear that the Eurocrats are becoming the new nationalists, who brook no criticism of what we regard as their ill fated project.

I remind noble Lords that our membership is cripplingly expensive. It costs us perhaps 8 per cent of our GDP per annum. That includes the figures for overregulation, additional food costs and straight cash. Yet with its own accounting system continuing to be entirely inadequate and open to fraud, Brussels has the nerve to tell us how to alter our own accounting standards. It also presumes to inflict 41 damaging directives on the City of London—most of which, I fear, have not yet started to bite. It even suggests that it should be entrusted with sorting out the banking crisis. You could not make it up.

I conclude by asking about one other attribute that the EU shares with all undemocratic states: its use of expensive propaganda, to which we contribute. This is a good day to ask about this, because in Brussels this evening the brilliant and mildly Eurosceptic think-tank Open Europe is launching its latest analysis of the EU propaganda machine. It is generously entitled The Hard Sell: EU Communication Policy and the Campaign for Hearts and Minds and reveals that the EU spends a minimum of €2.4 billion per annum promoting itself and its central aim of ever closer union. That is more than Coca-Cola spends.

In case Europhile noble Lords are tempted to think that my use of the word “propaganda” is excessive, I will quote from the EU Commission:

“Neutral factual information is needed of course, but it is not enough on its own. Genuine communication by the EU cannot be reduced to the mere provision of information”.

I suppose that Brussels thinks that this propaganda is necessary as the EU grows steadily more unpopular with the people whom it seeks to dominate, especially with the British. Why should the UK continue to pay its 10 per cent share, some €240 million per annum? Could we not spend that money better elsewhere?

I look forward to the noble Lord’s reply, but I fear that I can guess at it. I suspect that he may seek to justify our continued ruinously expensive membership of the EU by repeating the arguments offered by the Government during our debates on the Lisbon treaty last summer, to the effect that, whatever the financial and constitutional costs of our membership, it is worth it because the Government enjoy more clout on the international stage and can deal better with international terrorism and with its sacred cow, global warming. That is a convenient position for our “conference-ariat” or political class to take, but it does not stack up. One can see that because EU countries have scarcely collaborated very successfully during the recent financial crisis. It will soon be obvious to real people that any of these pretended advantages could just as well be achieved through intergovernmental collaboration. They will then be even less enamoured of the unfortunate project of European integration, with its attendant costs to our sovereignty and exchequer. They will continue to get angrier the longer we stay in this wretched project.

My Lords, that was a fine load of old Schmidthubers to liven us up at the end of a long debate. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, will pass on my commiserations to the new treasurer of UKIP, who has really drawn the short straw. We cannot just say that it is all Europe’s fault, as the noble Lord has. The noble Lord, Lord Vinson, started with some very interesting points about confidence and capital but, later in his speech, seemed to follow the line of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

I start by declaring my interests fully, as they are in the register. I am joint managing director and founder of OLIM Ltd, traditional fund managers for pension funds, charities, investment and unit trusts and private clients in UK equities and commercial property. We are part of Close Brothers; we do not short banks or sell any shares short at all.

The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, as so often, put his finger on the key issues of the debate and our economic situation today—the need for capital investment on a major scale and the need to fix the banks. He was absolutely right to focus on whether toxic assets have properly been written off. That is a major reason why the market has recently been very concerned about the Barclays share price, particularly given its enormous exposure to the gambling operations of Barclays Capital. The noble Lord, Lord Barnett, said that he had some bonds. I have news for him: the Government will be pumping out plenty more. There will be no shortage; there is no need to hurry while stocks last.

The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, gave a stark and important warning about the plight of early-stage companies. As he says, venture capital funding has virtually dried up. That is very serious and very worrying.

On these Benches we are at one with the noble Lord, Lord Blyth, in completely failing to understand why the FSA has decided to end the ban on short-selling in British banks. My honourable friend in another place, Vince Cable, has been taking a lead on this. It is the first serious mistake that the noble Lord, Lord Turner of Ecchinswell, has made, and I hope that it is not repeated. Of course, short-selling is not the only cause of the collapse in bank share prices, but why take the chance in a situation like this? When the fire brigade is fighting a roaring inferno, you do not let people play with paraffin around the flames.

I agreed with one part of the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Ryder of Wensum—and he was the only person to raise it—about the increasing and, in many ways, hidden cost of public sector pensions. We need to face up to that, and face up to it soon.

The noble Lord, Lord Sheldon, like his noble friend of so many years, the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, was absolutely right to focus on the fact that the present instability is probably the greatest that it has been for many generations. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, was right to talk about the lack of focus on the exchange rate and, as have so many noble Lords, to point out that the banking sector is still clogged up. The noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, pointed again in a similar way to exchange rate and funding risk.

Perhaps I may say a few words about how I see the current economic situation and the risks. In some worrying ways, the closest parallel over the past century is with 1931. Back then, Britain was, as it is today, the most aggressive major developed country in dealing with deflationary pressures, particularly by a substantial devaluation. In those days it was coming off the gold standard; now, as we have heard, the currency has been sharply devalued. Certainly in the early 1930s our depression was a great deal shorter and shallower than most other main countries; however, the difficulty today is that our banking problems are much more serious than those of any other major country. Obviously there are small countries such as Ireland and Greece that are in a grave situation, but we have a large banking sector in relation to our economy. We have had, more than most other countries, an enormous build-up—an overvaluation in not only the residential but also the commercial property market. That has not been talked about so much, but it is in a very serious state. I refer in particular to the two big Scottish banks that were aggressive leaders in commercial property; between them they have £100 billion of exposure to commercial property which they have hardly begun to write off yet, so there are serious losses to come.

If we compare Britain and America, the numbers are worrying. The total assets of British and American banks are roughly the same, at just under $2 trillion. If we factor in something like an 18 per cent loss in those assets, which is not unreasonable, the losses in Britain would be about equivalent to the GDP and about twice the public debt, whereas in the United States we would be talking about losses for the same write-down of 10 per cent to 15 per cent of GDP and a third of public debt.

Of the five biggest banks in the world, three are based in Britain: the Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays and HSBC. The other two big international banks in the top five are Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas. Those pressures are one of the reasons why preference shares in United Kingdom banks yield about 25 per cent. The market is saying that there is serious risk.

The other problem is that the economy is falling fast. Looking at the last quarter’s fall on an annualised basis, we are talking about GDP falling at a rate approaching 6 per cent. The retail price index in particular fell 2.5 per cent over the past quarter, although no one seems to have noticed. Again, we are talking about a double figure percentage rate of decline. Everything that I sensed from the high street in January is that retail prices are falling even faster. We are seeing the possibility of a 1930s-type recession.

I would like the Minister to take up a problem in the commercial property market: people avoiding their obligations. It is called pre-pack administrations; many companies, retailers in particular, are effectively tearing up their leases, milking their suppliers, going into administration in the morning and buying themselves back out in the afternoon. That is causing great problems to suppliers but it is also seriously undermining the income stream and the security of income for pension funds and life insurance companies. I hope that the Minister will draw that increasingly worrying abuse to the attention of his noble friend Lord Mandelson and to the Insolvency Service.

As I have said, the economy is in grave danger of slipping down a black hole. The rising tide of unemployment is only just now hitting consumer confidence and house prices. The house price falls we have seen so far, which in reality are about 30 per cent, have really only been for financial reasons and the unwinding of speculation. Real people losing real jobs in the real economy will make the second shoe drop in the housing market, pushing house prices lower still. I would be very surprised if they did not halve from the recent peak to the bottom of the trough.

The banks must start serious lending again to British business, and the Government must face up to the 30 per cent or 40 per cent hole in lending to British business that has been left by the Icelandic, Irish and other foreign banks. That is a major problem. Individual British banks complain they cannot fill the hole. The problem is that they are the only people who can, which is part of the reason there is such a savage squeeze on bank lending.

Finally, the Government must inject serious spending power into the economy, not through stunts and wheezes—we have heard all about the VAT cut, which has been dismissed, rightly, around the House—and not by trying to pick winners in individual struggling companies, but by putting money straight into the pockets of pensioners and low-paid people, who will spend it because they must. We must build up real national assets, especially in desperately needed areas such as insulation, green power, green projects and, most important of all, affordable housing. We must not leave hundreds of thousands of building workers dumped on the dole—we must get them building again.

My Lords, this has been an interesting debate with many notable and intelligent contributions, especially, I am glad to say, from this side of the House, where the speeches were of such high quality that I should like to pay tribute to all the Conservative speakers and to the interesting speech of the noble Lord, Lord Pearson.

As well as being interesting, this has been a rather surreal debate. I say that because so much of what is in the convergence programme—the document we are discussing today—is open to question. It is a sad state of affairs that the Government have so devalued themselves that the figures and statements they produce are no longer credible. For example, eight years ago, before the economic crisis—and I choose this so no claim can be made that economic events distorted the forecast—Gordon Brown stated that Her Majesty’s Government would borrow £28 billion between 2001 and 2006. The Government actually borrowed £129 billion during that period. If that size of error could be made in benign circumstance, what hope is there now?

We have had to live through a series of hopeless forecasts, to which my noble friend Lord Ryder so ably drew attention in the debate. We have had to suffer the misleading spin produced to try to conceal reality. Not only have economic forecasts been spun but also all areas of government activity. The public have had enough spin to make even the strongest feel dizzy.

Even the convergence programme document has distortions; for example, the employment statistics. These describe the large number of people who will be employed in 2057, as if the Government have the slightest idea what will be happening next year, let alone in nearly half a century. A graph demonstrating the 2028 figure is included, but it completely ignores the present increase in unemployment to which my noble friend Lord Northbrook drew attention. I shall be interested to hear the Minister's answer to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Noakes on the assumptions used about unemployment and the impact that unemployment figures will have on the PBR.

My noble friend also commented that the EU is forecasting that the British economy will shrink by 2.7 per cent in the current year, nearly three times as much as the Government are forecasting. For 2010, the EU is forecasting that this country might creep out of negative growth whereas the Government are forecasting 2 per cent growth. Which forecast is the most credible? As my noble friend Lord Northbrook said, it is not likely to be the Government’s. It is shaming to have to stand here and say that the European Union is more believable than Her Majesty’s Government.

This over-optimistic forecasting on the economy will lead to projected borrowing figures being worse than predicted. The estimated figure for next year is £118 billion but no serious outside commentator believes this and on the Government’s record they would be right. When the extra borrowing is added in, what impact will it have on the UK’s debt ratios as we go forward? The treaty debt ratio limit of 60 per cent, already exceeded, will be even worse, and that before all the items that this Government exclude from official statistics are included. Others have already mentioned these today—local government pensions, public pension liability, private finance initiative, Network Rail, the banks, and so on and so forth. Together they add nearly another £1,000 billion to government liabilities. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Noakes on the ability of Her Majesty's Government to fund future years’ borrowing which, as I have said, may well exceed the figures estimated.

The Minister was asked to confirm that there would not be further tax increases beyond the proposed 45 per cent. Will he also say whether he agrees with the remark made by the noble Lord, Lord Healey, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, that this tax increase was only imposed to cheer up Labour’s core vote, and that all high taxes achieve is to drive abroad those most able to contribute to improving the economy? The noble Lord, Lord Healey, also said that there are probably twice as many people working in the public sector than are necessary. Does the Minister agree with him? And does he accept that reducing this unnecessary expense in the public sector, thus redirecting resources from the unproductive sector of the economy to the productive sector, is ultimately the only way to solve this country’s economic problems and bring budget deficits and government borrowing back to levels which will not create an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren?

My Lords, I add to the comments by the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Rising, in complimenting the quality of contributions to this debate: it has been a high-quality debate in its contributions from all sides of the House and from all parties, rather than being limited to one.

I will endeavour in the 20 minutes or so allotted to me to cover as many of the questions asked as I can, although, once again, noble Lords have made that an almost impossible task, unless one-word answers would suffice—I doubt that they would. Copies of the document that we are being invited to submit were placed in the Library on 19 December. I do not believe, as the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, suggested, that this document will lead to criticism and rebuke from the EU Commission. I believe, on the contrary, that the EU Commission will indicate that the policy stance we have taken is consistent with that which the EU believes to be appropriate in addressing a global recession in which there is a failure at this stage to have an equilibrium between supply and demand and the need for that to be adjusted to by fiscal stimulus.

The noble Baroness referred to the New York Times article. I urge those on the Conservative Benches, here and in the other place, not to fall into the trap of appearing to take pleasure in the misfortunes of those suffering in our economy and in economies elsewhere; not to take pleasure from those whose jobs are at risk; and not to take pleasure from those whose homes face repossession. These are global problems, and we are taking appropriate action. Quite frankly, the Conservative Party does its cause a disservice when those who lead it on economics, in their preening arrogance of privilege, born to a better life, abhor the programmes that we are adopting to protect those who are most vulnerable at this time.

The noble Baroness refers to Citibank’s data on debt comparators. I am familiar with this work. She elects not to indicate that, not only has there been growth in debt, but also growth in assets. One of the reasons that we have higher private sector borrowing as a percentage of GDP in this country than elsewhere in Europe is high home ownership. Is the Conservative Party opposed to home ownership? Is it opposed to the use of mortgages to finance the purchase of one’s home? If so, that is a new policy to me, which I am sure the country will be interested in hearing more about. Another reason that we have high debt in the private sector is the remarkably well funded pension position which characterises the UK in comparison to many other jurisdictions.

The noble Baroness raised questions about the temporary reduction in VAT. She said that it had “bombed”. With all respect, it is far too soon to pass judgment on the economic impact of something that was only introduced just before Christmas. I take some comfort from the fact that the honourable Member for Rushcliffe in the other place himself proposed the policy before it was announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

There was much talk from the noble Baroness about proposals to reduce public expenditure. Well, I hope that if there are proposals to reduce public expenditure through greater efficiency, they are executed with somewhat more success, precision and credibility than David Cameron concluded could be applied to the work done by the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, when conducting such an exercise for the Conservative Party.

The noble Lord, Lord Ryder, made similar points about the need to cut expenditure. Well, what would he cut? On that we got very little enlightenment.

My Lords, I am always grateful to the ever polite and courteous Minister. I said no such thing. I simply said that the PBR submitted by the Chancellor last November did not produce a credible framework for providing a structure whereby public expenditure could be reviewed properly when circumstances allowed. The day after that PBR statement, the markets decided against the Chancellor, partly for that reason. If the Minister looks tomorrow at the text of what I said, he will find that I said no such thing.

My Lords, if that is the case, I concede that point, as I am sure the noble Lord would also do should he find that the IMF did not use the term “reckless” in describing the Government’s fiscal management.

My Lords, the IMF stated quite clearly last year that the Government’s spending policies were out of hand. It said that before the markets collapsed.

My Lords, I would be very happy to give way again to the noble Lord if he answered the question about the word “reckless”.

Certainly, my Lords, no one could consider the Government’s expenditure last year as anything but reckless. After all, the figures produced late last summer were the worst figures on public expenditure published since 1946, when records began. If that is not reckless, what is?

My Lords, I find myself defeated by a man who honed his skills in the other place. I heard him say that the IMF had used the term “reckless”. He is now choosing to say that it is, actually, his own term. Let me also help him. As he studies the IMF’s pronouncements on the UK economy last year—to which he referred—I shall quote its comments on the UK economy. It said that the UK had,

“strong policies and policy frameworks, which provide a strong foundation to weather global shocks”.

My Lords, can the Minister remind the House for what period the IMF was making its examination for that report?

My Lords, this was the IMF’s standard spring report. It is backward-looking and forward-looking. The terms used here very much pointed to the future, which will provide,

“a strong foundation to weather global shocks”.

I suspect that we will not agree on that, but I am clear that the quotations I have used are correct. I am not as clear that the IMF used the term “reckless”.

The noble Baroness asked three questions, which I shall seek to answer. First, it is not the Treasury’s policy in making economic forecasts to make assumptions about unemployment, other than regarding the operation of the automatic stabilisers. That has been the Treasury’s position for many years. The noble Baroness then asked about the funding of the government borrowing requirement. The noble Lord, Lord Higgins, referred to that, and I shall return to his point later. I would simply observe that the DMO has expressed its confidence about the fundability of the public sector requirement, that gilt yields are at a low point, compared with the past 50 years or so, and, indeed, that the sterling premium over German federal government borrowing rates is currently running below trend. That is evidence, if one wishes to look to the markets, and I believe that the markets can be used to prove just about—

My Lords, I should point out to the noble Lord that he has obviously not been looking at the gilt market over the past two or three weeks.

My Lords, I look at the gilt market daily. The premium of UK borrowing over German government borrowing rates is actually below trend.

I was asked about future taxation by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Howard. Again, I am sure that they will realise that I shall not anticipate forward changes in taxation, whether reductions or increases. However, we have said that it is our intention that public finances in the medium term should be sustainable.

I am not going to comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Healey, says about those who work honourably, dutifully, effectively and loyally in the public sector. I know that it is very easy for people to mock public servants, but this party will not do so and I certainly will not be party to that. I found it shocking, in the description of those who will pay 45 per cent tax—the top 1 per cent of earners—the term that they “have the most to contribute”. What an inverted view of society it is, when the Conservative Party believes that those who have the most to contribute are at the top, and those with medium and the lowest remuneration have little to contribute—although it might explain why their concerns are rarely a feature of the Conservative Party’s political proposals.

I noticed that the noble Lord, Lord Newby, addressed a question about the IMF to the Conservative Benches. I also noticed that it was not answered. I appreciate the noble Lord’s support and that of the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, for the fiscal stimulus, and I agree with their blending of the need and appropriateness of fiscal stimulus in this global crisis, aligned with a need to be fair and to ensure that those who are most vulnerable in society are protected. This is certainly not the right moment to copy the Tory tax cuts of 1981—to bleed the economy, as the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, said. This is the time when those with the broadest shoulders, the public sector, should be the risk managers who ensure that demand is there to support the economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Newby, asked about the Government’s response to the Treasury Select Committee. I am sure that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will respond, particularly to the committee’s observation that the single most critical problem for the economy in the near term is bank lending. That is precisely why we are focused on bank lending and precisely why we will be developing over the next few weeks lending agreements with banks which choose to participate in the asset-protection arrangements set out by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the other place at the beginning of last week. I also recognise the value to our economy of social housing and the importance that that sector should continue to enjoy adequate supply of competitively priced funding.

My noble friend Lord Barnett—whom I look upon to guide me on parliamentary procedure, although not to the point where he suggests that perhaps I should become a banker and cease to be an active member of the Government and this House—asked a question about shorting. I thought I had answered this when questions were asked by the right reverend Primate the Archbishop of York. Specifically, I believe I said that shorting aids price discovery and provides liquidity. My noble friend invited me to put a letter in the Library explaining this. It may be even more helpful if I ensure that my noble friend and the Library have a copy of the FSA’s consultation document on shorting, which is likely to be published in the next few weeks.

My noble friend suggested that Treasury economic forecasts were “guessing”. That term is loaded with pejorative meaning. I shall simply say that the Treasury’s methods for economic forecasting are not dissimilar from those used by other reputable economic forecasters. If we accused those in the private sector responsible for producing economic forecasts based on guessing, their market value and rate for the service they provide would be likely to fall. We will not therefore use that term.

My noble friends Lord Barnett and Lord Sheldon correctly summarised why we believe that VAT is the appropriate mechanism for fiscal stimulus. I would only add that the fact that it is also of benefit to non-taxpayers was another reason why Mr Kenneth Clarke and the Chancellor of the Exchequer both—

My Lords, I let the first reference to my right honourable friend Kenneth Clarke go by without rising to my feet. I explain for the record that my right honourable friend said before the Pre-Budget Report that he favoured a reduction in VAT. When he saw the horrifying figures revealed by the PBR he made it clear that he dissociated himself from the VAT-cut element. That is on the record of the other place and I hope it can be on the record of this House.

My Lords, I note that the right honourable Member for Rushcliffe amended his views on VAT. I am sure that there are people on the Tory Front Bench who hope that he will also amend his views on a number of other things where he is currently out of line with the thinking of Mr Cameron and Mr George Osborne.

With regard to auditors, I remind my noble friend of last night’s debate. The primary responsibility for accounts lies with the banks’ directors. I am going through a programme of meeting the chairs of banks’ audit committees to inform myself of the processes that they are taking in completing their year-end accounts. It is absolutely critical that we restore trust in the accounts published by our banks, and indeed by banks elsewhere in the world. We can do little about other world bank accounts, except through agencies such as the Financial Stability Forum. However, it is clearly important that our own banks produce accounts that inspire trust.

My Lords, is my noble friend saying that the reports that I quoted of meetings between the FSA, the regulators and the top auditing companies were untrue? Were they talking?

My Lords, in truth, I am not sure. I have certainly had meetings with the heads of the major accounting firms that are auditing our banks’ accounts, and I should be very surprised if the FSA has not also had meetings. I think we, including the banks, all realise that restoring damaged trust in banks’ accounts is of considerable importance both to the banks and to the economy.

The noble Lord, Lord Freeman, made an extraordinarily well informed and thoughtful speech on technology. I am keen to monitor the supply of capital to smaller companies, including those financed through venture capital and in the technology sector. I have spoken to my noble friend Lord Drayson on this matter and I shall draw his comments to the attention of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

I am conscious that there have been one or two interventions, so, with noble Lords’ indulgence, I shall go just a few minutes over 20 on the Clock.

There is no time limit.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, raised questions about quantitative easing. The most recent announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer included a reference to the £50 billion fund, which I hope will be large enough to buy the whole of my noble friend’s portfolio, but possibly not. He said that this created the architecture that could be used for quantitative easing but then went on to say that the question of whether quantitative easing was used was a matter for the Monetary Policy Committee in engagement with the Treasury. He also said that, if this were contemplated before enactment, there would be a public exchange of correspondence between the MPC and the Treasury.

The noble Lord, Lord Blyth of Rowington, who served with me many years ago on the board of a strong and well performing bank, questioned the Government’s economic record of achievement. I am the first to admit that in this House, as in other places, we can be slightly selective in our use of data. I shall be as guilty of that as anyone and point out that in six of the past seven years the UK was either the strongest or the second strongest-growing economy in the G7 and that over the past 10 years we have enjoyed the highest per capita income growth in the G7 sector. Therefore, I do not think that it has been an entirely wasted period.

The noble Lord also said that short selling nearly brought Barclays to its knees. If he has information to suggest that that is the case, I think he should share it with the FSA. Certainly, on the basis of the published data, there has been almost no short selling or short selling positions in the shares of UK banks. The noble Lord will, perhaps, be aware that there is now a daily report from the FSA on short-selling positions, so I respectfully suggest that to be a slight overstatement.

I have given way to the noble Lord, Lord Ryder of Wensum, on numerous occasions. I will now give way to him happily, because the thrust of his comment was the need to reduce government expenditure. If that is the case, where would his party reduce it? Would it reduce it on nurses, or on teachers, or on the police, or on the military? I refer particularly to public sector pensions. The noble Lord said that the issue of public sector pensions needed to be addressed, so it would be helpful if the House were informed how he would address it.

My Lords, the Minister is very naughty because he tries to put words into people’s mouths that they did not utter. I simply said that, sooner or later, a Government would come to office who had to replicate the public expenditure White Paper produced by my noble and learned friend Lord Howe of Aberavon in 1979. He had to clear up the profligacy of the previous Government, and that will have to happen again.

I did not specify when that would be but the Minister, above all people, knows full well that there will be such a White Paper sooner or later and that such decisions will have to be reached by a Government in office. The Minister may not be part of it; by then, he might have gone back to the City and be earning lots of money. I hope that he will have, but a Government will have to do it—and he knows that.

Perish the thought, my Lords, that I should seek to put words in the mouth of the noble Lord, Lord Ryder, for to do so could be described only as reckless.

I never leave this Chamber without an increased admiration for the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, to our debates. If it is possible, while on the Government Benches, to look forward to somebody’s contribution when looking to the Opposition Benches, then that is how I feel. Today was another when the noble Lord in no way disappointed me. He described himself as feeling, at times, befuddled with the complexity of monetary targeting; that was certainly an economic fashion of the time, which has now passed into decline. The noble Lord said that there is little in the document about monetary policy; I refer him to paragraphs 2.77 to 2.88 of the PBR, which deal with that, and with objectives and responses to the global shock.

As the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Statement to the other place on 19 January, the Bank of England’s asset-purchase facility will address liquidity in the system. The Treasury said that this programme,

“also provides a framework for the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England to use asset purchases for monetary policy purposes should the MPC conclude that this would be … useful … for meeting the inflation target. In such circumstances”,

as I have previously said,

“a further announcement would be made”.

It can be construed from that that the Government and the MPC are considering a range of options that might be appropriate regarding the price and quantity of money.

My Lords, the Minister quoted a particular paragraph, or it may have been a chart—it is extremely difficult to find these things on the spur of the moment. Will the Minister provide the House with the Government’s forecast of what they think will happen to the money supply? I leave it to them to choose the definition of money supply, but at present we have no indication.

My Lords, in discussion with colleagues I shall consider the merit of assisting the noble Lord in pursuit of that information. If my colleagues and I conclude that that would be a good and proper thing to do, I will write to him and ensure that a copy goes to the noble Lord, Lord Vinson, as I believe his interests are similar.

I shall say little in response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook. As one of the later contributors, many of the things that one was going to say, or has said, have already been covered by others. I apologise for that and will limit myself to two comments that he made about banking, acknowledging that he is a scion of the Barings banking family and a known expert in this field. I think that he misunderstands the issue in respect of Northern Rock. A process of foreclosure on mortgages may well be right and appropriate—indeed, in the interests of the borrower when it is not possible for borrowers to continue to service their mortgages. That is rather different from what we are now saying, which is that we see the potential for Northern Rock to be used as a vehicle to provide additional funding for house purchases—for good quality new borrowing.

He also asked whether I thought that the Swedish and UBS models were useful. I think that they are. We certainly reviewed them in considerable detail before we concluded that an asset protection programme, which is sometimes described by the media incorrectly as insurance, was better than a whole purchase of assets—the good bank, bad bank model—that lies behind the Swedish and UBS precedents.

I shall have to consult colleagues on whether the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, used unparliamentary language, but his contribution was entirely predictable. My answer to the questions on withholding contributions and on the issue of audit will be no different from that of my colleagues when asked those questions previously by members of UKIP. I covered this matter in some depth when I answered a Question in this House from my noble friend Lady Cohen. However, as it was my first or possibly second day in this Chamber, I was frozen with fear and doubt whether my answers were as coherent as they should have been. If I reread Hansard and feel that I can improve my answer in any way, I shall do that by writing to the noble Lord, to whom I give way.

My Lords, I still have not understood whether the Minister and Her Majesty’s Government think that it is a good idea or a bad idea to withhold billions of pounds—more like £20 billion a year gross—from an organisation which cannot account for it.

My Lords, my answer to my noble friend Lady Cohen was to highlight that the vast majority of EU expenditure is carried out through national governments. Expenditure from the centre is relatively modest. As I said, I will revisit that.

My Lords, when the Minister revisits that, will he bear in mind that the Commission is responsible for one-third of the expenditure?

My Lords, I will ensure that I am even more informed on matters relating to the EU Commission, although I doubt whether I will ever be as informed as the noble Lord on that particular matter. But it may be that I represent a party with a broader range of policy proposals than UKIP would probably ever aspire to achieve.

The noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott, raised questions about pre-pack administration. I am aware that my colleagues in the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform have been alerted to these concerns and are monitoring it closely. I will draw to their attention his comments.

In closing, as has been mentioned, this is an extraordinary time both in the UK and abroad. We are in a global crisis that will require a global solution. The UK will continue to work closely with its partners in Europe and elsewhere to maintain a co-ordinated approach to the issues and solutions. It requires action now to help people and to build a stable economy. There is international consensus, although unfortunately it is not shared in this House, that we must act now to protect people and to help to pull our economies out of recession.

We have made our choices; namely, helping businesses, home owners, people and families, and boosting incomes. All that is possible only because this Government have taken a deliberate decision to support people and businesses through these difficult times. Against this background, I commend the Motion to the House.