Baroness Neville-Rolfe
Main Page: Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness Neville-Rolfe's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 19 hours ago)
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Lord Livermore (Lab)
We listen carefully to all Budget representations, but as I say, I will not speculate on the next Budget now.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)
My Lords, the fact is that we are all too close to a fiscal and economic crisis, much of which this Government have created. Debt interest is now a substantial proportion of departmental expenditure, productivity is flatlining and by 2028-29 the tax burden will be at its highest level in the country’s peacetime history. Does the Minister recognise that further tax rises are not the path to sustainable recovery? Will he affirm that he recognises that taxing people and taxing businesses ever more heavily will only undermine our productive capacity and further reduce the growth we all want?
Lord Livermore (Lab)
The noble Baroness has a rather selective memory: she seems to have forgotten about the last 14 years. But she is quite right that the most sustainable way to repair the public finances is through growing the economy. At the last fiscal event, the OBR scored our planning reforms as the biggest increase in growth of any non-fiscal measure, and we hope very much that it will continue to score our growth measures. As she says, that is the most sustainable way of repairing the public finances.