Spring Forecast

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2026 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Reeves]

It is good to see the hon. Member still on the Conservative Benches—I thought she was going to be joining her Tory tribute act friends over there with the right hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick). What the Office for Budget Responsibility document shows today is that people are going to be £1,000 better off by the end of this Parliament, whereas under the previous Government living standards fell, and GDP per capita is set to be 5.6% higher by the end of this Parliament, whereas under the previous Conservative Government GDP per capita fell.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will hear a lot from politicians today—although it appears not from Reform Members, because they have all gone—but does she agree that the most important people to listen to are not those making the sound and fury in this room but those who lend money to the Government? They believe that her proposals are worth lending money against, and for that reason, the amount we will be spending on debt interest is falling. Unlike the Conservative party, they think the UK is a good credit risk in comparison with other G7 nations. Will she say more about how she can bring electricity prices down to support the growth that she is all about?

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend knows that if we can improve living standards and also reduce how much we are spending on servicing the debt racked up by the Conservatives, we will have more money to spend on the priorities of people in Chesterfield and elsewhere. The numbers today confirm that we will be spending £4 billion less on debt interest next year than was forecast even in the Budget just a couple of months ago, and that is because of the stability that we have managed to return to the economy. Under the Conservative Government, before Liz Truss, we were spending the average of the G7 on our debt servicing costs. That rocketed under Liz Truss. We have already managed to reduce some of that borrowing premium, but if we continue, we have a £15 billion prize on offer, and that will be money to spend in our communities, on the priorities of working people, whereas under the previous Government, we just spent more and more on servicing debt interest costs.