USING THE PUBLIC CREDIT

Early day motion 1515, tabled 26 June 2002 by Austin Mitchell (Labour). Signed by 25 members.

That this House, recognising that the huge expansion of bank lending and the decline of the note issue as a proportion of available money have meant that the seignorage return to government and the proportion of debt free money issued have both fallen heavily as proportions of GDP, so that credit has effectively been privatised, to the enormous benefit of the banks with an increase in the debt burden on every individual and company; therefore urges the Government to redress the balance back to the people by instructing the Bank of England to create credit on an experimental basis to be used exclusively to finance specific public investment in projects, schools, hospitals or transport, so that the public can assess the benefit of using the People's Credit for the People's Purposes as an alternative approach to partnerships with the private sector (like PPP and PFI) to see whether this method of financing is better and does not impose the heavy extra costs of public finance initiative or public private partnerships and also to enable more public sector investment which will stimulate employment and economic growth; and further urges the Treasury to review and report on the benefits and procedures for using the public credit to achieve higher economic growth and full employment in an economy where both have suffered as the burden of debt, private and public, have increased.

Signatures by party: Labour 18, Plaid Cymru 3, Labour/Co-operative 2, Liberal Democrat 2.