Borrowing to invest, not to pay the bills

THERE is great news for Daily Express readers.

The state did borrow huge sums of money under Labour and the Coalition, but it has got away with buying up large amounts of that debt with money it has created.

Normally if you just print money that causes inflation, but because of the banking crash 10 years ago buying up debt with printed money worked.

So do not listen to people who tell you our state debt is 87 per cent of our annual national income so it’s too high. The true figure today is 65 per cent which is manageable.

There is more good news to come next week. The Government is now adding to the debts at a much slower pace than before.

It is no longer borrowing to pay the regular bills, just borrowing a bit to make some longer-term investments in things like railways and housing. That’s fine. There’s no need to stop borrowing altogether, and no need now we are leaving the EU to insist on getting state borrowing down from the 65 per cent to below 60 per cent as the EU’s austerity policies require.

Uncertain

So the Chancellor can start to think about how we spend that Brexit bonus that comes as soon as we stop sending so much money to the EU as contributions and how we should spend the growing tax revenue that comes from a growing economy.

I would like the Chancellor to acknowledge that we need to train and recruit more doctors and nurses for our NHS. NHS spending has been going up very slowly in recent years and more is now needed.

We also need to make more generous provision for social care. The numbers needing help in advanced years are growing, and such care is expensive.

We should want to help provide good quality homes and support for people living in their own properties.

Schools in many areas are short of cash for teachers and textbooks and could do with a top up.

Our defence forces need more financial support. This is an uncertain world and we need to keep up our guard.

I also would like the Chancellor to look again at tax rates that deter people from enterprise, investment and effort. Sometimes lowering tax rates brings in more money to help our public services.