Budget Resolutions
Debate between Lilian Greenwood and Mel Stride(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mel Stride
Let me talk about the general point that the right hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) made about the tax burden. It is as if history has been erased from her mind. The fact is that the covid pandemic shrank the economy overnight by 10%, and this Government stepped in, supported jobs, and saved 10 million jobs as a result of the intervention that we came forward with. It is as if it has been erased from her memory that a war is going on between Russia and Ukraine, and that that has led to an increase in energy prices and inflation. This Government have stepped in to support the most vulnerable in society, including families, pensioners, and the disabled up and down this country. The Government provided £400 billion of support across that period, and in all candour, I do not believe that there was a single occasion on which she opposed any of our interventions. She was up for spending the money to support people, but not up for recognising that it has to be repaid. That is why the tax burden is indeed increasing.
To go back to the point about the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook raised by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), the OBR makes it clear that the measures taken yesterday in the Budget mean that the tax burden will be lower than was forecast in the autumn, as a result of the management of the economy and the reduction in taxes that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor brought forward.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
The Secretary of State might not be surprised that Labour Members take it a little unkindly when he suggests that we are forgetting the past, when he seems to have forgotten the immediate past, and the state that the former Prime Minister left the British economy in just a year ago. How much extra debt interest will the Government pay as a result of the Chancellor’s unfunded commitment to abolish national insurance contributions, at a cost of £46 billion?