30th November 2009
Parliament has three more weeks of work to go before the Christmas recess, and the time is packed with consideration of the new “Bills” from the Queen’s Speech.
I will be leading for my Party on the new Education Bill, which is likely to have its Second Reading in a few weeks time. This Bill will need a good deal of parliamentary time, as it will cover a whole range of controversial issues including on home education, the primary school curriculum, a “licence to teach”, school improvement policies and the proceedings of family courts.
My fear is that the Government will seek to curtail the amount of time for Parliamentary scrutiny, because of the imminent General Election. A complex education bill of this type would normally take a good 4 or 5 months to go through both the House of Commons and House of Lords, with hours of debate in Committee – taking each proposal in the Bill “line by line”. But there is no way that the Government will be able to make the same amount of time available as this, and so Ministers will either have to try to force through the legislation, or they will have to accept that it may not make it through before Parliament is dissolved.
As well as all the legislation which the Government is trying to “ram” through the House, the two big issues which will pre-occupy Parliament over the next few weeks will be Afghanistan and the Economy.
Next week the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, will come to Parliament to present his “Pre-Budget Report”. This was an idea first introduced by Gordon Brown over 10 years ago, when he was Chancellor. The idea was to consult on ideas well in advance of decisions being made – with the final decisions being announced in the main Budget Statement in around March.
But – rather predictably – the “Pre-Budget Report” has actually become a “Mini-Budget”, and it is now less about consultation and more about giving the Government a first bite at the Budget apple.
Unfortunately for Alistair Darling, however, the cupboard is very bare! Indeed, the Chancellor is likely to have to confirm his forecast of a whacking deficit of some £175,000,000,000 (£175 bn) on the public finances.
Chancellors and Prime Ministers usually like to announce “giveaways” just before General Elections, without the “takeaways” usually following pretty swiftly after the Election. But on this occasion there isn’t the money for anything remotely resembling an election bribe, and so the only issue is whether Mr. Darling will start trying to slash the deficit now, or leave it until after next Spring’s election.
Given the shaky nature of our “economic recovery” it seems that Mr. Darling will not announce any more “bad news” for now, particularly as value added tax is already expected to go up by 2.5% (back to 17.5%) on 1st January. The Government will not want to hit consumers too hard before the recovery has even begun.
The increase in VAT is likely to combine with higher energy prices to push inflation up in early 2010. In 2009 prices have been falling (according to Government statistics), but these declines are likely to be reversed in 2010. With pay rises still at very low levels (or zero in some cases) this is also likely to put a squeeze on consumer spending.
The other big issue is Afghanistan. Reports this week suggest that many of our troops on the frontline are getting disillusioned by the lack of a clear strategy and the limitations on much needed resources.
Most coalition nations have been waiting for President Obama to give a clear need, and the resources to do the job. It is, indeed, unfair to expect our troops to put their lives on the line when the signals coming out of Washington and London have been so confused.
What we now need is a clear and well resourced strategy to defeat the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and then an accelerated process of handover to the Afghan Government forces, with a clear exit strategy for the majority of the UK and coalition troops.
Best wishes,
David.