Before reporting progress I was referring to the change of heart on the part of the Minister since making his budget statement in regard to the question of valuation of farmers who have a trade. In his budget speech he agreed that because he was reducing the threshold to nil, people with only very small acreages would be brought into the tax net and that he would allow the notional system to be used rather than to ask those people to produce accounts. He has indicated now that he wishes them to produce accounts. I consider it very wrong that a person whose income from a small holding may be as little as £200 a year would be required to spend money on engaging an accountant or a bookkeeper in order to prove that that was only the amount of the income. This is a matter that is concerning greatly the people in question. The difference for them between the notional and the accounts system would be very small. Despite the Minister's remarks today I can assure him that my contentions are based on facts presented to me by an accountant who is dealing with such people in his everyday work.
One of the effects of the Minister's proposal is that people who normally engage in hire work for their neighbours are not interested in continuing that activity out of a fear that, by reason of their names appearing in the books of their neighbours, they would be brought within the tax net. Let me make it clear that I am not making a case for the exemption from tax of all farmers. I am making a case for those engaged in hire work and who perform an essential service for the farming community. The Minister's proposals in this regard are indicative of an urban mentality and show a lack of realisation of the benefit of these people to the rural community.
Our national debt stands at £3,400 million. In other words, the Government have succeeded in their short term in office in more than doubling the amount that had been borrowed during the previous 50 years. When we proposed borrowing £1 million for capital expenditure the Minister sneered at us and told us that our efforts to provide jobs in that way would come to naught, that nobody in Europe would lend us the money. I should like to know what has happened to our credit standing in Europe in the meantime. It was good when we left office. My opinion is that it has been eroded by the squandermania of this Government, who frittered away millions of pounds in dishing out the goodies so as to court popularity and to buy cheap publicity when they should have been building for the future. Our purpose in borrowing was to provide jobs. We did not intend adopting the policies that this Government have pursued in the field of borrowing.
The greatest sin on the part of the Government has been their failure to produce jobs for our young people. They are now making promises in this area and we hear much of the job creation programmes of public bodies for 1977. Yesterday the Minister for Health indicated the job creation programme he had in mind in the Eastern Health Board area but we are convinced that this is merely another pre-election gimmick and that it contrasts forcibly with the penny-pinching of the past three years. During that time when we looked for extra dentists or doctors or community care people we were told that we would have to work within the stringencies of our financial allocations.
No doubt the decay that has set in in the meantime will not be capable of being put right by any move at this stage. It is amazing that a situation has now been reached where money can be provided to procure jobs while only a very short time ago no such money was available. For instance, in one of his first speeches after assuming office the Minister for Education remarked that no money was available for the purpose of reducing the pupil-teacher ratio or for extra remedial teachers. This is a typical example of the Coalition's blundering because in a class of 45 pupils there are bound to be produced some who will require remedial attention. As a teacher I am convinced that this is a matter which should be tackled immediately. Such matters as the drainage of rivers and the improvement of roads might be left for another year or so. But if one fails to give a child a chance it needs, one is culpable to the extent that one cannot remedy that failure later. I should like to impress upon the Minister that it would be our policy to pay people to work rather than pay them to idle. It cost £80 million to pay unemployment benefit and assistance last year. Yet the Minister wondered where we might get the £100 million we would plough into capital expenditure to provide jobs. At the commencement of his Ministerial office I wonder did he question where he would get the £80 million to pay people each year not to work.
Great prominence has been given to this new employment incentive scheme. It has got a certain amount of publicity which might do good in so far as it might attract people to it. We have the Minister for Labour's personal guarantee, backed up by his photograph and signature, and he mentions that it is hard fact and hard cash too. The workers of Newbridge Industries, long since closed down, will remember the first employment premium scheme when they asked the present Government for consideration that would allow them to be paid social welfare on certain days, that they would provide work in the factories for, I think it was, a day-and-a-third each week. They were told that they would not get unemployment benefit unless they were at home sitting by their firesides, that they could not work and be paid. That is the thinking that has permeated the Government, that people must be paid to be idle and cannot be paid to work. I hope this new employment incentive scheme will be more effective than its predecessor. However, it appears to be another eleventh-hour promise and I am very doubtful whether it will be effective. It is like the recent effort of that showy character in racing, The Minstrel, in the Two Thousand Guineas; the Minister timed his effort a little late. It is no wonder that the Leader of the minority party in the Coalition, Mr. Corish, wants a June election to get out before the Minister for Labour is forced to pay his IOUs.
Possibly reference to The Minstrel affords me an opportunity to draw special attention to the decline in the bloodstock industry here. I am convinced—and I made this point in the House before—that this decline is a direct result of Government policy, particularly that of wealth tax. When it was first mentioned I indicated to the House that I had information on which I could rely that millions of pounds had been frightened out of the country by the mere mention of this tax. That has happened.