Lord Saatchi (Con)

How they laughed, my Lords. Seeking for economic growth in Britain, I went to the fount of economic wisdom at the London School of Economics and asked a roomful of professors whether anyone had a brilliant idea for how to get economic growth. How they laughed. It would take a complete change in the entire culture of the society—inconceivable; impossible. Undeterred, I went to the citadel of economic power, the UK Treasury. Seated at a huge mahogany oval table, surrounded by gilt-framed portraits of great former Chancellors on the elegant oak-panelled walls, I told them, “You are torturing people with your tax and benefits system. You are telling people flat out not to work. Maybe they are sick, or maybe they’re not, but the one certainty is that they are not stupid. You are telling them that their after-tax income from a job is less than they get on benefits. No wonder half the population of Britain is now means-tested for benefits. This has to change. People need more incentive to work, not less, or we will never get any growth”. So I said. The response? Just that—total silence. The top official then spoke in a stern, grave voice, adopting the tone of a strict headmaster admonishing a child brought before him for unruly behaviour in class. He advised me to regard the enormous table as if it were the universe, with the tax system as the solar system—the sun, stars, moon and planets all in their proper place. He moved the coffee cup by one inch and explained that, although that might seem a minor change in one corner of the universe, it could have untold repercussions at the other end. Bearing in mind, he said, the danger of unintended consequences, it was therefore best not to upset the balance of God’s creation. There it is: the professors say it is impossible; the Treasury says it cannot be done. Is there any hope? Of course there is, because we have in our hands the greatest underutilised social and economic weapon of all time—tax. Long ago fallen from the grand role of social engineering, tax has been reduced to the junior role of revenue generation, as is well illustrated by this Budget. Yet it is at least on a par with the NHS or the criminal justice system in its impact on the culture of our society. The worst of all worlds would be a continuation of the status quo, where we have to accept as inevitable the present combination of high taxes and inadequate public services. We need someone to emerge who is intelligent enough to match the massed ranks of the LSE professors and the Treasury officials. Do such people really exist? Can they exist? Of course they can, and they do. We need someone like President John F Kennedy. Had he ever left Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 22 November 1963, he would have gone to Austin, Texas to give a speech that night in which he would have addressed the American situation. We have the words of that speech. It would have ended with exactly the six words we urgently need now to end Britain’s endless economic malaise. It is not complicated; this is what is required: “Neither conformity nor complacency will do”.