Liam Byrne
Main Page: Liam Byrne (Labour - Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North)Department Debates - View all Liam Byrne's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Rachel Reeves
I have huge respect for the right hon. Gentleman, but he left a massive black hole in the public finances. There had not been a spending review for years, and during that time inflation went through the roof because the Conservatives lost control of the public finances. We had to find the money to properly fund our national health service. It is a bit rich for the Conservative party to say that we should bring welfare spending down when it presided over a huge increase in welfare spending.
On the burden of taxation, our choices ensured that those with the broadest shoulders pay higher taxes. We got rid of the non-dom tax status and we are introducing the higher value council tax, VAT on private school fees and the energy profits levy. We are ensuring that those with the broadest shoulders pay the higher prices, rather than allowing the increases in inflation and interest rates in the last Parliament, which hit working people.
Liam Byrne (Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North) (Lab)
The plan that the Chancellor has set out this afternoon shows that inflation, debt and bills are down, and that headroom, growth and living standards are up. That is testament to a plan for stability that is working, but that stability would be undermined if she surrendered to the idea of the £47 billion-worth of unfunded tax cuts set out by the Conservatives, so will she resist those calls? As fiscal headroom opens up, will she look again at what can be done to drive down energy costs for small business and genuinely reform business rates, so that we are backing our wealth creators, and not gambling with the public finances, as the Conservatives did?
Rachel Reeves
We are backing the innovators through the reforms that we made in the Budget last year to make it easier to list in London, and easier to raise finance in the UK. We have permanently changed business rates, so that we have a lower multiplier for high-street businesses and smaller businesses, particularly in the retail, hospitality and leisure sector. We did that by putting £4.3 billion into the system. All of that money would have been withdrawn by the Conservatives.