"My right hon. and gallant Friend is entirely right, as usual, and something else has also been going on. I have written to the OBR to ask Richard Hughes exactly what happened with the information that the Treasury appears to have leaked out about the forecasts during the run-up to …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"The Minister says from a sedentary position that inflation is coming down. The International Monetary Fund says that inflation will be the highest in the G7 this year and next year.
We know that with high inflation, interest rates are higher for longer. That means businesses’ borrowing costs are higher. …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"We will come on to why that is the case momentarily.
What has happened to borrowing? One might have thought that the Government would have learned the lesson that ever-increasing borrowing always leads to disaster, but no: there is £11 billion of additional borrowing on average in every year of …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"The Minister is having trouble containing himself, such is the punishment that he is receiving at the moment. They borrowed all this money, and what did that do? It stoked inflation, and with inflation higher, interest rates have been higher for longer...." Mel Stride - View Speech
"The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The income tax threshold freeze—which has been extended for three years, even though the Government briefed that it would probably just be two—means 780,000 more people paying tax for the first time, because the personal allowance will be frozen for longer, and 920,000 people …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"I congratulate the hon. Lady on reading accurately from the Whips’ circular. The Opposition stand by our record—[Interruption.] Absolutely. When we were in government, we were a job-creating machine: there were 4 million more jobs under us than had been there before. When we left on the …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"I will in a moment. It is there in black and white in the OBR’s report. The reason for that forecast is £26 billion of additional taxation in 2029-30, and, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury will know, an additional £12 billion of tax take that will occur because …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"I have already set out the fact that this Government’s ruinous taxation policy, including in the Budget yesterday, is to load up taxes on people who are in work, many of them not high earners. The impact of that tax is the reason why the OBR has concluded that for …..." Mel Stride - View Speech
"My hon. Friend is precisely right. I have set out the iniquitous impacts of the reduction of the national insurance threshold on younger people, as well as the impact that the Employment Rights Bill will have by increasing the risks of employing younger people. That is self-evident and obvious, and …..." Mel Stride - View Speech