Budget Resolutions

Debate between Caroline Lucas and Angela Eagle

Wednesday 6th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case for the need for investment in public services, but in that context, I wonder why the Labour party appears to be supporting the freezing of fuel duty. We know that the cost of freezing fuel duty since 2010 is a staggering £90 billion and that climate emissions since 2010 are 7% higher than they would have been had that policy not been in effect. Precisely because she wants more money to go into public services, can she explain why Labour is supporting this extraordinary policy?

[Dame Angela Eagle]

I think that the costing of the policy in the forecast ought to be more honest and it should be taken out of the scorecard if it is not to be put into effect.

Taxes are still higher than they have been since the second world war, and the Government have continued to fritter billions on fraud and waste. Only today, we learned that taxpayers have had to pick up the bill for the legal costs of the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology and for the damages in a libel case. How much has that debacle cost us?

First, the Conservatives gave us the catastrophic mini-Budget with its unfunded tax cuts, which spooked the markets and sent mortgage costs and rents soaring for millions; and now the current Chancellor has decided to fund his election giveaways with the fiscal fiction of huge cuts in planned departmental spending scheduled to last the whole of the next Parliament. There are no detailed plans for how those cuts in spending can be safely delivered, because we are not to have a spending review. Today, the Chancellor confirmed that there will not be a spending review until after the next general election. He pencilled in a so-called increase of nearly 1% for departmental budget spending, but has not compensated for higher than expected inflation or population growth, or any extra cost pressures.