Liz Kendall
Main Page: Liz Kendall (Labour - Leicester West)Department Debates - View all Liz Kendall's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Labour party has opposed the £13 billion VAT increase, even though we now know that the shadow Chancellor, Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson all supported that increase; and it has opposed some of the other measures to which my hon. Friend refers. There is a difference when it comes to the NHS: I believe it is the official policy of the Labour party that the NHS should not be protected from cuts and should not have a real increase in funding. I happen to disagree with that policy, and we will see what the public think about it.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Chair of the Treasury Committee asked the Chancellor to publish new details of the distributional impact of the Budget, including the proposed cuts to housing benefit and disability living allowance. Is the Chancellor aware that the Institute for Fiscal Studies produced such an analysis last month? Is he aware that it says that
“the overall effect of the new reforms announced in the June 2010 Budget is regressive, whereas the tax and benefit reforms announced by the previous Government” —
for the same period—
“are progressive”?
In the light of that evidence, will he explain whether he still claims that his Budget and his Government are progressive?
Mr Speaker
Order. There were three questions there, but one answer will suffice.