Douglas Carswell

George Osborne's budget irresponsibility

Today the House of Commons debates the Charter of Budget Responsibility. Had MPs been doing their job properly, perhaps they might like to impose a bit of real budget responsibility on ministers instead of merely taking about it.

Having meekly given the power to control what government spends to Treasury officials, MPs will this afternoon pay lip service to balanced budgets without lifting a finger to make it happen. Successive Parliaments have approved budgets that have been anything but responsible.

First under Gordon Brown, then George Osborne, the ratio of public debt to GDP has increased from 40 percent to 90 percent. Under the past four years alone, debt has almost doubled to £1.4 trillion.

Ironically, it is the Office of Budget Responsibility that helped make this fiscal car crash happen.

Initially, the OBR made a series of overly optimistic growth forecasts. Once the economy had bounced back to 3 percent growth, they seemed to suggest, lots of extra tax revenue would come flooding in.

"No need to cut spending significantly, Chancellor" they seemed to suggest. "More growth means lots of extra tax, which will balance the books".

Except of course the Chancellor's conjuring trick has been a bit of flop. There has been less growth and lower tax revenues. With less budget restraint than was wise, the deficit remains stubbornly high, and debt has doubled. The inappropriately named Office of Budget Folly helped make this happen.

Instead of simply talking about budget responsibility, MPs might actually do it. How? Cutting overseas aid by £9 billion would eliminate the deficit by a tenth. Ending the renewable energy scam would cut the total extra energy subsidies by another £9.8 billion by 2020.

Instead, I suspect MPs will prefer to preen, posture and talk.  As MPs talk in the three hour debate, public debt will increase by another £23 million.

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