Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer

Debate between Mel Stride and Mark Pritchard

Wednesday 10th December 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

Momentarily—I assure the hon. Gentleman that I will come to him.

What Labour has done in the meantime with this Budget is to take entirely the wrong decision, which is to tax all those hard-working people to the tune of £7 billion—a high proportion of that to transfer straight across to those who are on benefits, including scrapping the two-child cap. Those are the wrong priorities. They are about the socialist obsession with redistribution, and nothing to do with driving the incentives in the economy that grow it and make everybody better off.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

We heard from Labour Back Benchers about the previous Government’s borrowing, but that was for the country as a whole—for example, covid recovery loans. We have seen with this Budget what I would call career recovery loans, which are for the benefit of two people: the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister.