Marsha De Cordova
Main Page: Marsha De Cordova (Labour - Battersea)Department Debates - View all Marsha De Cordova's debates with the HM Treasury
(6 years, 1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Hammond
Yes. As I said earlier to an Opposition Member, in conversation, businesses—[Interruption.] Perhaps I should just sit down while the shadow Chancellor conducts his own conversation.
As I said earlier, businesses, in conversation, identified two risks about which they were concerned: the risk of a bad Brexit deal, which will have an impact on our economy, and the risk of the right hon. Gentleman’s ever getting his hands on any of the levers of power in our economy. Of those two, there is no doubt that business—as represented in the voice of Paul Drechsler this morning—regards the risk posed by the right hon. Gentleman as by far the bigger.
Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) (Lab)
The Chancellor has claimed that spending on disabled people has gone up, but we know that next month cuts in social security will hit them the hardest. He has also spoken about apologies. Would he like to apologise to the millions of disabled people whom he blamed for low productivity?
Mr Hammond
Of course I did no such thing. [Interruption.] No, I did not. We spend more than £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions. That is a record high, and we have spent £7.5 billion more in real terms since 2010. As a share of GDP, our public spending on disability and incapacity is the second highest in the G7. It amounts to 2.5% of our GDP and to 6% of all Government spending.