Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Claire Hazelgrove and Rachel Reeves

Tuesday 4th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)]

I welcome our Government’s recent Typhoon deal with Türkiye, which will see the brilliant team at Rolls-Royce in Filton play a key role in engine production and maintenance. Will the Chancellor join me in congratulating them, our local small and medium-sized enterprises and others, and set out how integral she sees defence as an engine for growth?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is a solid defender of businesses and working people in her constituency. The defence industrial strategy is about supporting British industry as we—and other countries around the world—up what we spend on defence. We want British businesses and British workers to benefit from that investment.

Public Spending: Inheritance

Debate between Claire Hazelgrove and Rachel Reeves

Monday 29th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. I have just set out the non-dom tax loophole closures, and my hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary has published a written ministerial statement today setting out our manifesto commitments around the energy profits levy, VAT on private schools, and the non-dom changes, which we will consult on and introduce in the Budget. We will not be introducing a wealth tax. We want this to be a great place for investors, and a wealth tax would have the opposite effect.

[Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)]

May I thank my right hon. Friend for her transparency and openness about the dire state of our inheritance from the Conservatives? The Tory leadership race is now clearly in full swing, which is important. People across the Filton and Bradley Stoke constituency, and across the country, deserve to know why none of the contenders came clean about this black hole when they were in government. Or were they kept in the dark by the Chancellor’s predecessor as well?

[Rachel Reeves]

Far be it from me to give advice to Tory leadership contestants, but if I were taking part in this contest, I would want to distance myself as much as possible from the Government in the previous Parliament who caused this terrible mess.