David Gauke MP: How Gordon Brown doesn't answer the question

David Gauke is Conservative MP for South West Hertfordshire and a member of the Treasury Select Committee.

So you think Gordon Brown is a bit sneaky? 

For the past two weeks, the misleading way in which the Chancellor presented both his first and last Budget has been headline news.  Clearly, a Brown Budget Statement is designed to obtain a cheer from gullible Labour backbenchers and not to provide a fair summary of the Budget measures.  However, if you want to appreciate the full range of evasions and half-truths employed by the Chancellor, examine his evidence to the Treasury Select Committee.

After every Budget and Pre Budget Report, the Chancellor is cross-examined by the Committee.  It should be an opportunity for those of us on the Committee to scrutinise the Chancellor’s policies in detail and, occasionally, it is.  But, more often, it provides a lesson in how Gordon Brown avoids answering the question.

His last evidence session was on 29 March, 2007 and here are a few examples of how he does it.

(1) DISMISS EVERYONE ELSE'S OPINION

Unsurprisingly, Gordon Brown dismisses the opinions of his political opponents.  However, respected academic institutions, such as the Institute of Fiscal Studies, fair little better.

For example, the IFS says that, in order to meet its child poverty target, the Government will need to spend an additional £4 billion a year on transfer payments.  Not true, says Gordon, their assumptions about improved employment rates are wrong.

The tax changes in this year’s Budget will result in about 5.3 million households losing out, say the IFS.  A Treasury official even confirmed that this was the case in evidence to the Treasury Select Committee.  But Mr Brown refused to accept the figure – an improved take up of working tax credits will make all the difference, says the Chancellor.

Let us take the central electoral issue of public spending plans.  At the last General Election, Gordon Brown claimed that the Conservative spending plans would result in a cut of £35 billion.  This figure was reached by assuming that Labour’s public spending would remain constant as a proportion of GDP.  In contrast, Conservative spending would have resulted in a fall in public spending as a proportion for GDP and the difference between the two, £35 billion in 2011-12 prices, constitutes a ‘cut’. 

Now that the Government is scaling back its spending plans, the difficulty for Mr Brown is that, as the IFS has pointed out, by applying the same logic, the Chancellor has also just announced a £12 billion ‘cut’.  When this was put to him, he dismissed the IFS analysis as ‘wrong’ and a ‘mistake’, although it is not clear why.  Only Gordon understands these things.

By the way, the IFS stands by its assessments on all three issues.

(2) MAKE OPTIMISTIC ASSUMPTIONS

The Chancellor says he will meet his child poverty target because lone parent employment rates will rise.  However, the IFS is already assuming a big increase in lone parent employment and, in any event, child poverty targets are not very sensitive to employment rates. Admitting that he has abandoned the child poverty target would not do his leadership prospects any good so he relies on an unrealistic assumption.

Mr Brown argued that higher take up for working tax credits will mean there will be fewer than 5.3 million households losing out from the Budget changes.  However, little evidence was provided as to why take up will increase substantially and, as a Treasury official confirmed to the Committee, the budgetary assumption is that there will be no increase in take up of working tax credits over the next few years. Again, an unsupported assumption is used to spare Mr Brown’s blushes.

(3) JUMBLE UP THE NUMBERS

Is the tax burden rising or falling?  It is a simple enough question and there is a simple enough table in the Treasury’s Red Book which shows that it is rising in the next few years.  That, however, was not the answer we got from Mr Brown.  Instead, he referred to another table which showed that the projections contained in the 2007 Budget for the tax burden are lower than the projections contained in the 2006 Budget – a different matter entirely.

Mr Brown claimed that the fall in the projected tax burden was as a consequence of the tax changes announced in his Budget and elsewhere. However, both the Budget changes and the other changes announced since the 2006 Budget (such as the doubling of Air Passenger Duty) have further increased the tax burden.

(4) TURN IT INTO AN ISSUE ABOUT THE CONSERVATIVES

This is an old favourite but used rather bizarrely in his evidence to us.  In discussing the changes to income tax announced in the Budget (the doubling of the 10p rate and cutting 2p from the 22p rate), the Chancellor commented that he ‘noticed that when we had the Budget votes no party voted against it’.  However, as was pointed out to him (and as he must have known), the changes to income tax take effect next year so there were no votes this year. 

Still the Chancellor persisted in arguing that it had been supported in Parliament – ‘we had the vote on the measures in the House of Commons on Tuesday night and people did not vote against the measures’.  Again he was corrected and told that the vote on the 20 pence rate of income tax was next year.  He responded with the non sequitur ‘I am very interested to know that the Conservatives are going to vote against the 20p rate, that is very interesting’.

(5) KEEP THE OFFICIALS IN CHECK

Not only does the Chancellor avoid openness and transparency in his own evidence, but woe betides any official who gives informative answers to the Committee. 

The day before Mr Brown gave evidence, senior Treasury officials appeared before the Committee.  The Managing Director of Budget, Tax and Welfare, Mark Neale, was most helpful.  He confirmed that 5.3 million households would lose out as a result of the Budget.  He admitted that the budgeting assumption was that the take up of working tax credits would remain at current levels.  And he also revealed that the additional sums announced in the Budget for the Financial Assistance Scheme, to compensate those who have lost their occupational pension schemes, constituted £1.9 billion at net present value, whereas the Chancellor had announced in his Budget a £6 billion figure (based on the sum of the nominal amounts).

Mr Neale was due to return the next day to give evidence alongside the Chancellor.  Mysteriously, he was withdrawn at the last minute amidst rumours that Mr Brown was furious when he learnt of this evidence.  It is hoped that Mr Neale has not been assigned to measuring tractor production in Siberia as a consequence.

***
A year ago, I wrote that I thought it was in Gordon Brown’s best interests to call a snap election soon after becoming Prime Minister. He has had such a poor year since that this now looks highly unlikely. I fear that the country as a whole will have to suffer a few more years of Mr Brown’s evasions.

Comments

[Oberon Houston]

Excellent piece David, I’m sure your dedication and hard work on this committee will be noticed, as it deserves to be.

It’s becoming clear that Gordon Brown, given his huge influence on domestic policy, his terrible failings, and his clear aspirations to become PM should make him the clear focal point of our opposition to this Labour Government.

In your conclusions, I think its difficult to say what will happen next, however by doing our bit to destabilise Brown and turn public opinion against him, we may see a more divisive leadership election, which will certainly be a great boost for us. As the press regularly comment we have an open goal, so why don’t we strike – we need more David Gauke’s in our party.

We only have a month to do this, so everyone’s efforts are needed now. Keep up the great work exposing this duplicitous bully as the bitter failure he really is.

[sjm]

I think this kind of article from MPs actually on the 'factory floor' is very informative and helpful. It's also another reason why ConsHome is much more valuable than MSM.

The examples of Brown's lies and apparent existence in a parallel universe simply add to my seriously-held view that the man is actually mad.

[kingbongo]

excellent article - focussing on what a disastrous PM Brown will be is sensible and it's amazing how easy a target this clearly disturbed man is. He is totally unsuited to the career he has chosen but the myth of him as a great tactician has been been blown out of the water.

[Robin]

I would have to agree with a comment made earlier about Brown bring "mad" - he locks himself away in his room for an unhealthy number of hours reading around his subject area. His professional attitude is more like that of an academic than a politician. The weakness of academica is that is it is petty and full of closet back-stabbing. Academics supposedly have private peer reviews, but it is no more than a means of quietly repressing alternative opinions.

I see Gordon "going down" in the manner of an academic who has faked his results rather than a politician who has lost the trust of his public.

[Oberon Houston]

David, Grateful if you could answer me one question - have you read Gordon Brown's biography by Tom Bower? I have become slghtly obsessed with publisising this book amongst activists because I think it's a gold mine of material for us - interested to hear your opinion if you have read it.

[David Sergeant]

This is great stuff for us bloggers. Now will someone tell the voters.

[Alan S]

That's our job David Sergeant and the job of every Tory activist...

[James Sproule]

Is it any wonder that Blair’s conclusion was that Brown was psychologically flawed?

Very good piece, parts of which I shall be using in local literature…

[David Gauke]

Many thanks for the kind comments above. In response to Oberon Houston's question about the Tom Bower biography, I have read it and I would recommend it strongly. Not only is it damning of the Chancellor's personality but it also provides a critique of many of his pet policies - over-complicated tax credits, the abolition of dividend tax credits for pension funds, individual learning accounts, the university for industry etc etc. As Bruce Anderson wrote recently, 'if every voter read it, Gordon Brown would be lucky to win election as a dog-catcher in Kirkcaldy'. He has a point.

[Jennifer Wells]

Thanks Mr Gauke. Glad to see you engaging with us 'umble bloggers!!!

[Paul Anderson]

I have just discovered this blogg for the first time ... brought me to talking about elephants in rooms. Tax has been a life long interest, and I have long since come to the following conclusion.

If the taxation was set up so that the government commited itself to reducing the total tax take in all its forms by 2% per year in real terms for the next 20 years (or even 10) the following would happen (no question)

1. Everyone would have more to spend

2. Companies would be able to plan ahead

3. Prices would fall

3. Inflation would fall (reducing interest rates and spiral down)

4. Bank chages would fall go to 2.

5. People would spend more

6. Create more jobs

7. Then allow reduced benefits (and demand on the public purse)

8. People would become more responsible

9. Crime and bad behaviour would fall

10. Health would increase (due to less stress the main reason for Dis-ease meaning not at ease with the self)

11. Demand for hospitals & treatment would fall.

12. Greater properity reduces demands on public services generally.

12. Lower taxes would increases inward investment exponentially

13. All exactly the oposite of now

14. So finally, the UK is an Island, like so many tax havens.

15. Let us leave the EU and join the other sucessfull tax havens like Switzerland and so many others, all supremenely properous and self sufficient with tax rates of 5-10% and fully able to provide the necessary public services.

16. What is stopping us ????

17. Let us, again, be responsible, caring human beings (which we naturally are) not the agressive, selfish animals that we have become.

18. Socialism & Liberlism remove self reliance and the ability to improve the quality of life

19. I personally believe this logic would return Britain to its natural political state.

20. Anyone disagree ??

[Alan Summerfield]

I have to agree entirely with Paul Anderson that lower tax is good for everyone. I would also like to pass on an observation - The social benefit system was originally created to be a safety net for people who fall on hard times and was never intended to become a way of life. Lower taxes would help people realise that they can be better off in employment.

[Adrian de Segundo]

And another technique, more usable in front of the full house, is: answer a question with another question. Witness the frequent 'Will conservatives restore the dividend tax credit' during the pensions debate on 17 April. These are typically aggressive, and thus mostly irrational, bully boy tactics from the Clyde Valley and points east. They are cheap jibes not the actions of a statesman, let alone Prime Minister or someone with a genuine interest in working out what's best for our country's future. And what about Sir Alistair Graham's lament as he left the Committee on Standards in Public Life on the failure to persuade the Government to place high ethical standards at the heart of its thinking and behaviour? And when do we even hear mentioned, let alone used, any of the 7 Nolan Principles of Public Life: Selflessness,Integrity, Objectivity, Accountablility, Openness, Honesty & Leadership ?

[The Tired Tory]

An excellent and informative piece. More of this please!

[The Tired Tory]

An excellent and informative piece. More of this please!