ePolitix.com asked MPs for their reaction to the chancellor's pre-Budget report.

John McFall

The Chancellor's statement was made against the background of global uncertainty. He made the point, quite rightly, that this is not the time to cut back on investment - hence the extra borrowing. He met his fiscal rules and the public finances remain in good shape; the best of any of the G7 countries.

He confounded the critics and was proved correct in his estimate for UK growth of 2.1 per cent this year and, with growth projections of 3 to 3.5 per cent, this augers well for employment and the general macroeconomic health of the economy in the years to come.

The Chancellor has shown his determination to borrow money in order to redistribute wealth by increasing the child ingredient of the Child Tax Credit by £180. This goes a long way to meeting our targets on eradicating child poverty, and Gordon Brown has further enhanced his redistributive credentials by upgrading paternity and adoption pay in line with maternity pay.

The relocation of 20,000 civil service out of London is a welcome boost to the regions and underlines the government's strategy to devolve more front line power to the regions and to redevelop other areas of the UK. Overall he presented a vision to the country with at its centre his objective of a full employment strategy for every area.

Oliver Letwin

Oliver Letwin, Conservative Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and MP for Dorset West, said: "The Chancellor has congratulated himself with characteristic modesty on the state of the economy and on meeting his growth forecast. And it is, indeed, Mr Speaker, a remarkable event when the Chancellor meets one of his own forecasts.

"But the great question is, if the economy is doing so well, why is he borrowing so much?

"At the time of the last election, the Chancellor said he would borrow £10 billion this year.

"Since then, in a series of reports, he has raised his projection to £15 billion, to £24 billion, to £27 billion.

"Today, he has finally admitted he will have to borrow £37 billion this year. We shall have to see whether that forecast proves any more accurate than its inaccurate predecessors.

"The Chancellor will have been warned about families who borrow a huge amount on their credit cards. But he's doing the same on the nation's credit card ...

"In this pre budget report we should have had announcements on public service reform. Instead, we have unreformed public services from an unreformed Chancellor, who has taxed and spent and failed.

"The taxpayer is paying now for the Chancellor's spending and will pay more later for his borrowing. But the money is not buying anything like the services it should be buying because the Chancellor has placed his faith in a bureaucracy that, instead of exercising effective control, is itself out of control.

"In this pre budget report we should have had serious measures to reduce the regulatory burden on British business. Instead, business is paying now and is set to continue paying in lost productivity and lost competitiveness as a result of the Chancellor's suffocating blanket of stealth taxes and red tape.

"The people of Britain do not want the Government to borrow more on their behalf or to tax them more later to repay that borrowing.

"What the people of Britain want, what our families, our pensioners, our businesses want, is the prospect of some relief from the ever increasing burden of tax and regulation.

"Instead, what this pre budget report offers them is the prospect of paying now and paying more later."

Vincent Cable

Vincent Cable, Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham and economic spokesman, told ePolitix.com: "If the Chancellor is truly concerned about fairness, how can he justify a tax system where the richest 20 per cent of the population pay 34 per cent of their income in tax compared to 42 per cent for the poorest 20 per cent?

"On today's budget numbers we are looking at red faces at the Treasury and red ink on the books. No matter how the Chancellor spins his figures, the fact is that he is having to borrow more.

"A major contributor to over spending is the war in Iraq. In addition to the billions already spent on the war in Iraq, spending continues at £200 million a month on the occupation. Is it not one of the brutal lessons of the last year for the government and its Conservative allies that there is no such thing as a free war? British taxpayers will have to foot the bill, and there is no end in sight.

"£200 million is enough to pay for 7,000 secondary school teachers, or to train over 5,000 nurses.

"Finally there is the thorny issue of top-up fees. The Prime Minister has criticised Liberal Democrat proposals to raise money to pay for top-up and tuition fees from those who earn over £100,000 a year. Could the Chancellor explain why he thinks it is too extreme and damaging to the economy to ask Lord Sainsbury, Steven Norris and the Prime Minister to pay a marginal tax rate of 50% of their earnings over £100,000, but right to ask a graduate teacher, on just over £35,000 to pay 50% of their marginal income in tax and top up fees? Doesn't the government recognise the fundamental injustice this would create?"

Nick Palmer

Nick Palmer, Labour MP for Broxtoe, told ePolitix.com: "We seem to have rounded a tight corner in the world economy successfully. This was mainly a holding operation while the economy completes the turn, but Brown is entitled to be pleased that we're the only country in the developed world to have escaped the recession altogether. I bet he's glad he didn't listen to all the siren voices who told him to splurge the £24 billion we got on the mobile licences, which creates the buffer of debt repayments which is the key to the present policy."

John Redwood

John Redwood, Conservative MP for Wokingham, told ePolitix.com: "The Pre-Budget Report fails to recognise the damage which ever higher taxes are doing.

"There is no apology for the massive pensions tax, which has helped force many pension funds into closure or cutting benefits.

"There is no apology for the telecoms tax, which took many telecoms companies to the edge of bankruptcy.

"There is no apology for the large increases in council tax pushed through in the last six years.

"It remains a government of tax and waste, where the Chancellor is running out of ways to tax people without them noticing."

Tom Harris

Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow Cathcart, told ePolitix.com: "One of the greatest disappointments suffered by the Conservatives since 1997 has been Labour's failure to follow its own tradition of screwing up the British economy. If only Gordon Brown had had to devalue the pound, as Cripps and Callaghan were forced to in 1948 and 1967. If only inflation had run out of control, as it did under Healey in the late 1970s.

"But Brown has confounded all the Tories' expectations, and left them with precious little to complain about. To have maintained Labour's spending commitments while keeping the economy on track must be particularly galling to those Conservatives who expected Labour to overspend, overtax and pay the penalty in economic crisis and political exile to opposition as a result.

"In every single one of Labour's six years in power, the Tories have predicted recession and disaster. That turned out to be more wishful thinking than economic analysis, and with the polls still showing a Labour lead, there's very little in this autumn statement to offer Michael Howard any reason for optimism."

David Laws

David Laws, Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman and MP for Yeovil, said: "Today's borrowing figures show that the Chancellor has a real problem with the public sector deficit.

"His strategy now is to cross his fingers and hope he can postpone tax increases until after the next election."

Stephen O'Brien

Stephen O'Brien, Conservative Shadow Industry Secretary and MP for Eddisbury, said: "While many firms take the exit sign out of the country, Labour are making it even tougher for business with stifling taxes, red tape and an over enthusiasm for imposing burgeoning regulations coming out of Brussels.

"It is simply not good enough that Gordon Brown is considering abolishing 147 regulations. He forgets that it's his Government that has imposed 15 new regulations every single day. At this rate it will take the Chancellor only ten days to add those back on to the burdens borne by business.

"Labour is failing business. This government has had its hands in its pockets while business investment has collapsed, trade has worsened and 2,000 jobs continue to vanish from manufacturing every single week.

"British business is paying now and is set to continue paying in lost productivity and lost competitiveness as a result of the Chancellor's suffocating blanket of red tape and stealth taxes on business. And Gordon Brown had the gall today to confirm that the corporation tax take will be up 17.5 per cent next year over this year.

"Unless the wealth creating part of the economy has the best environment to succeed then public services will suffer, Britain will be a less attractive place to live and work and we will fail to compete globally.

"Under Labour businesses will continue to suffer and may be forced to close or relocate overseas. Whereas, under a Conservative Government, business will be given the low tax and low regulation environment they demand to create the wealth, investment and jobs upon which we all depend."

David Curry

David Curry, Conservative Shadow Local Government and the Regions Secretary and MP for Skipton and Ripon said: "This is a shocking £1.5 billion hit on council tax payers.

"Squirreled away in an obscure table we see the truth with Labour's council tax rising at five times the rate of inflation next year.

"Labour are in full blown panic mode and it is all their own fault."

Angus Robertson

Angus Robertson, Scottish Nationalist MP for Moray, said regarding whisky duty: "Treasury plans to introduce this daft and expensive scheme were successfully fought off recently with cross-party opposition and a high profile campaign by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA).

"Any initial outlay for companies to buy the necessary application machinery will run into millions of pounds. The stamps would also have to be paid for up front, presenting a security and cash flow nightmare for all concerned. The cost to the industry could drive some small producers out of business.

"Sadly the London government continues to treat this key Scottish employer as a cash cow and is not even prepared to cut duty and end taxation discrimination.

"Anti-fraud measures are important and the Scotch Whisky Association has been discussing options with the Treasury for nearly two years.

"Not too long ago the Department of Trade and Industry wrote to the Norwegian government when it was considering a similar scheme to warn that it was "likely to be inefficient and ineffective as a means of combating fraud and illicit trade".

"Bearing both these facts in mind the Treasury should stop targeting the Scotch whisky industry, should reach an agreement on anti-fraud measures with the SWA which does not add massive overheads and should cut duty instead of maintaining unfair rates of tax."

Sir George Young

Sir George Young, Conservative MP for Hampshire North West, told ePolitix.com: "The impact of the chancellor's pre-Budget statement was felt before it was delivered.

"The prime minister put on one of his better performances in prime minister's questions. Acutely conscious that his half hour would be followed by half an hour from the chancellor and that people would inevitably make comparisons, he got his act together in a way that he had failed to do on the three previous occasions.

"True, he never answered Michael Howard's questions about the legitimacy of spending taxpayers' money on a policy that parliament has not approved. He simply answered all the questions put to him by asking questions back; but he ended with a score-draw instead of being well behind.

"Turning to the chancellor, we had some familiar themes - enterprise, fairness, elimination of child poverty. All worthy ambitions. What struck me was the optimistic growth forecasts for the next two years (three to 3.5 per cent) as opposed to 2.1 per cent this year. I hope it happens, but it did strike me as a step change in a short space of time.

"And we have been here before. In April 2002, the chancellor said growth this year would be three to 3.5 per cent. In November, he said it would be 2.5 to three per cent. In April 2003, he said it would be up to 2.5 per cent. Today, he said it would be 2.1 per cent. Hmm.

"But does he need these optimistic forecasts to make the sums add up in the future, so he can tell us he would stick with his golden rule (borrowing over the economic cycle only to sustain investment, not to fund revenue)?

"Nor was it quite clear to me why, if things are going so well, the borrowing figures are so high. Were we in the depth of a recession, I could understand why we were having to borrow £37 billion this year. (And that figure excludes some borrowing which should be included as government debt as it is underwritten by the government)

But the chancellor told me how well we were doing, how buoyant employment was, and how we were bucking the downturn elsewhere. So why are we borrowing such enormous figures in the next three years?

At the time of the last election, he said he would borrow £10 billion this year. He revised this figure up to £15 billion, to £24 billion, to £27 billion and, today, to £37.4 billion. In 2001, he said he would be borrowing around £35 billion over the years 2002 to 2006. Now, he says that figure will be around £120 billion. It makes you a bit suspicious of his forecasts.

"The inflation target is being changed - I will want to look at the small print of this; but he was clear that he wanted public sector pay next year to be at around two per cent. That may lead to some confrontation with the public sector trade unions.

"He obviously recognised that the government had set an excessive number of targets and introduced too many regulations, because he announced that he was abandoning a number of them. Hoorah, but we need to carry this zeal a lot further if industry is to remain competitive, and those in the public sector are not to be throttled by Whitehall.

"At the end of his speech, there was a welcome U-turn on the revenue grant settlement to local councils - which impacts on next year's council tax bill. Only a few days ago, the local government minister made an announcement about next year's statement, and told us how fair it was. Many of us objected and told him otherwise. Today, the chancellor lobbed in an extra £400 million. Hoorah! Let's hope some of that filters down to Hampshire.

"Oliver Letwin did well and asked a large number of pertinent questions. The chancellor did not answer any of them; not surprising, as the chancellor spent most of Oliver's speech talking to his neighbours on the front bench.

"It is quite clear that, when the next election comes, the government will accuse us of wanting to cut public expenditure by £80 billion to take public expenditure down to 35 per cent of GDP. I am confident that we will do no such thing. I hope we will be able to peg public expenditure on health and education where it is, and get better value for money. And I hope we will look for worthwhile economies in the overheads of Whitehall."