Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Edward Miliband and George Osborne(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Edward Miliband
Just for once, why does the Prime Minister not give a straight answer to a straight question? Growth was not 5%, as he forecast, but—[Interruption.] The part-time Chancellor is about to give him some advice. I have to say to the part-time Chancellor that he should spend more time worrying about our economy and less time worrying about how to divert high-speed rail routes away from his constituency.
Edward Miliband
He shakes his head, but what does his council leader say? “Your MP”—[Interruption.]
Autumn Statement
Debate between Edward Miliband and George Osborne(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
There is only one person in the Chamber who is drowning, and it is the shadow Chancellor. That was the worst reply to an autumn statement I have ever heard in this House. If one thing changes as a result of this statement, it might be a shadow Cabinet reshuffle.
The shadow Chancellor said one thing that was true. He said it right at the beginning—he said that the national deficit was not rising. It was a Freudian slip, but it betrayed the fact that he had written his response before he heard my autumn statement and before he looked at the OBR forecast. Let me tell him that we do not fiddle the numbers in the Treasury any more—that is what happened when he was there. We have an independent Office for Budgetary Responsibility, and that is the problem he has. His whole policy was about complaining that borrowing and the deficit were going up, but that is not what the OBR forecasts show. Indeed, his prescription is to borrow even more. He complains about debt, but he wants to put it up. It is completely hopeless.
The shadow Chancellor talked about the substance of policies. Here are some simple questions that the Labour party will have to answer. If it is against the cut in the income tax rate from 50p to 45p, will it reverse it? It is the simplest possible question. [Interruption.] The Leader of the Opposition says it has not come in yet. It is coming in—it has been legislated for—so, if he is so against it and thinks it a moral outrage, will he commit to reverse it? Yes or no? That is hopeless position No. 1.
The shadow Chancellor railed at welfare benefits. I have another simple question. Will the Opposition support us or vote against a welfare uprating Bill? What are they going to do? Will they vote for or against the Bill? It is a simple question. For the first time, we have spending plans for 2015-16. He said nothing about whether he supported those plans, even though he hopes to be Chancellor that year. Does he support those spending plans? He talked about 3G. [Interruption.] They are shouting at me.
Mr Osborne
The 4G licence, yes. We are using the 4G licence. [Interruption.] May I say something about the 4G licence? The shadow Chancellor had 20 minutes to make his points, but he did not make any at all. We are using the 4G money, in part, for new capital spending, including building further education colleges, one of which is called the Leeds city college, in a town called Morley in west Yorkshire. I am not sure what the local MP would make of the shadow Chancellor’s decision that that is not the best use of the money, but he can look at himself in the mirror and ask that question.
The shadow Chancellor cannot answer these basic questions. He tries to claim that all the problems in Britain began in May 2010 and that they are all the fault of this Government. Literally only the people in the Brownite cabal claim that; there is not a single other person in the Labour party, in any business organisation or in any of the international bodies who believes that. The reason he has to maintain this completely incredible position is that if he admitted that the previous Government were responsible for the problems in our country, he would have to admit that he was responsible for them.
Out of necessity not choice, therefore, the Labour party leader has a shadow Chancellor who is more associated with the economic mismanagement that led to Britain’s problems than anyone else in Britain. He will not let his party move on. He is a man trapped in the past. The one thing the Opposition need to say is: “We’re sorry. We spent too much and we borrowed too much, but we won’t do it again”, but that is the one thing the shadow Chancellor cannot say. Until he does, though, the British public will never trust him or the Labour party with the public finances again.
Amendment of the Law
Debate between Edward Miliband and George Osborne(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Edward Miliband
What about the hapless accomplice, the Deputy Prime Minister? Only the Liberal Democrats could be dumb enough to think that a George Osborne Budget is a Robin Hood Budget. Calamity Clegg strikes again! A few months ago, the Deputy Prime Minister said of the 50p tax rate, with no ifs and no buts:
“I do not believe that the priority…is to give a tax cut to a tiny, tiny number of people who are much, much better off than anybody else.”
The party that once followed Lloyd George is now reduced to following George Osborne. The party that delivered the people’s Budget of 1909 is supporting the millionaire’s Budget of 2012. The Liberal Democrats should be ashamed. For all the talk and all the briefings, the Deputy Prime Minister has done what he has done on every big issue, from tuition fees to the betrayal on the NHS—he has rolled over and said, “Yes, Prime Minister.”
The truth is that for ordinary families, it is hurting, but it is not working. We know why that is. This Government have been cutting too far and too fast. What did the Chancellor say last August about America’s more balanced deficit reduction plan? He said:
“Those who spent the whole of the past year telling us to follow the American example…need to answer this simple question: why has the US economy grown more slowly than the UK economy”?—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1108.]
The numbers are in. The Chancellor is plain wrong. The US economy grew by 1.7% last year—twice the rate of ours. The Government have run out of excuses. It is their mistakes and the failure of their plan that are damaging our future.
Today we have heard about more schemes from the Chancellor, but why should we believe him? Every scheme that he has put forward so far has failed. What was the big idea of his first Budget? The national insurance holiday. We did not hear much about the national insurance holiday today, and it is no wonder. He told us in his June 2010 Budget that it would help 400,000 firms. He has missed his target by 97%. The Chancellor’s plan has failed. What was the centrepiece of last year’s Budget? It is easy to forget now, but it was called the “Budget for growth”. This scheme is my favourite. It is called the business growth fund. Six regional offices have been opened and how many businesses are benefiting? Six. [Laughter.] It is true. One business for each office. The Chancellor’s plan has failed. We needed a plan for growth that would work. We needed a guarantee on youth jobs. We needed a British investment bank to help small business. On growth, jobs and how we pay our way in the world, this Chancellor has failed.
On the film tax relief proposal, it is great to support great British success stories such as “Downton Abbey”.
Edward Miliband
Indeed, and Wallace and Gromit. It is important to support “Downton Abbey”, the tale of a group of out-of-touch millionaires who act like they were born to rule, but turn out not to be very good at it. It sounds familiar, does it not? We all know that it is a costume drama; the Cabinet think it is a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
This Budget will be remembered for the Chancellor’s failure on growth and jobs, and for the top rate tax cut. That is not just a bad policy or a misjudgment. It destroys the claims that the Prime Minister made about who he was and what he believed. He said personally in the aims and values document that he sent to every Conservative party member:
“The right test for our policies is how they help the most disadvantaged in society, not the rich.”
The document was called “Built to Last”. That was his test. It is a test that this Budget fails spectacularly. This is the death knell of his project and of his compassionate conservatism. He and the Chancellor have shown their true colours. They promised change, but they have failed on growth, on jobs, on borrowing and on fairness. It is unfair, out of touch, and for the few, not the many—an unfair Budget built on economic failure; an unfair Budget from the same old Tories.