TREASURY Chief Secretary Michael Portillo came under fire in the
Commons yesterday for not mentioning unemployment once in his speech
praising the Chancellor's autumn statement on the same day that
thousands of new job losses were announced.
Labour's spokesman, Miss Harriet Harman, said Chancellor Norman
Lamont's package of recovery measures would not end ''the relentless
increase in unemployment''. Even on the Government's own predictions of
their effect the measures did not add up to recovery, she said.
''There's a strong sense in this country that the recession has
stalked in and engulfed every region of this country,'' she added.
Deriding the Government's claim that #1750m would be released for
capital spending from council sales of housing, she said it would
require a 20% jump in sales at a time of recession and housing market
slump.
Mr Portillo claimed that the Autumn Statement package ''created the
conditions for a return of confidence and so remove a barrier to growth
in our economy''.
He denied that the 1[1/2]% ceiling on public sector pay deals next
year was an incomes policy. ''It is a decision by a major employer to
control its costs.''
He promised that the ratio of public spending to Britain's gross
national product would be brought down. Much of it was due to the
recession and associated costs like unemployment benefit. When recovery
arrived, the money spent on benefit would not be allowed to move into
other programmes.
''The ratio of spending to GDP must be reduced. That is a fundamental
objective of this Government and I reiterate it unambiguously,'' he
said.
Borrowing would be brought down ''towards balance'' as the economy
recovered.
Mr Portillo warned: ''We need to consider in the longer term the
balance between provision by the state and provision by the individual''
and hinted that further incentives for individuals to render themselves
at least partially independent of state benefits could be introduced.
Mr Terence Higgins (Worthing -- Con) predicted that the Autumn
Statement would be seen in the future to have been a turning point in
the progress of the economy.
Mr Robert Sheldon (Ashton-under-Lyne -- Lab) called for an expanded
housing repairs programme which could ''get people working next week''.
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