Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I do agree with my hon. Friend. We need to ensure that planning is reformed, and we have done that. It was a controversial decision, but as a Government we have pushed that through, and planning permissions are up. We need to create incentives for the private sector to build homes, and Help to Buy has done that. But we also need to go on building social housing, and as he well knows, the coalition Government are delivering the largest programme of social housing for a generation.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Does the Chancellor seriously believe that taxpayers subsidising mortgages on properties worth £600,000 is really leading to stability in the housing market?

[Mr Osborne]

I find it extraordinary that the Labour party is against Help to Buy, which is assisting those who are on low and middle incomes to get into the housing market. The great majority of those homes are outside London and the south-east. Almost none of them has been bought at £500,000 or £600,000, as the hon. Gentleman says, and what we are actually seeing is that the homes that are being built and bought are below the national average. So instead of carping about Help to Buy, Labour should get behind it.

Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Wednesday 26th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have also created the right incentives so that work pays. Alongside supporting business—by the way, extraordinarily, the Labour party last night voted to increase taxes on business—we are creating an environment in which jobs are being created.

We are creating a fairer welfare state.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a little moment, but let me make some more progress.

We are creating a welfare state that the country—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Osborne]

Many benefits apply universally throughout the United Kingdom, but some areas of welfare spending are devolved. I know that there are specific arrangements with Northern Ireland, and we have been having discussions with the Northern Ireland Executive. I am well aware that the right hon. Gentleman represents only one party in the power-sharing arrangement, but we are keen to see the Executive make progress on welfare reforms and help to control the bills, and, as he knows, we are discussing that with him and his colleagues. However, I shall be happy to sit down and work out with him how some of the principles of the welfare cap here can be used to control welfare spending in Northern Ireland.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

Let me make a few more points first. I will give way in a second—or a minute, perhaps.

The only benefits that we are excluding from the cap are the most cyclical ones which track the performance of the economy directly, such as jobseeker’s allowance and the housing benefit that is passported with it. They are the basic automatic stabilisers. By excluding only those benefits, we ensure that the economic cycle does not drive permanently higher spending on, for instance, sickness and disability benefits. We have also excluded the state pension and the additional pension. I know that the shadow Chancellor wanted to include them, but I would think it pretty unfair if a Chancellor who, for example, lost control of tax credit spending responded by cutting the basic state pension. That would not be sensible, and it would certainly not be fair. I think that adjusting the pension age is the best way to control expenditure on pensions over the long term as life expectancy rises.

In the Budget, we set the cash limit for the benefit cap at £119.5 billion in 2015-16—

[Andrew Gwynne]

rose—

[Mr Osborne]

I shall now ask the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) whether he supports that cash limit.

[Andrew Gwynne]

In one breath, the Chancellor talks of fairness to taxpayers and the need to impose budgetary control on welfare spending. Can he perhaps explain to the House why setting up universal credit has cost taxpayers about £161,000 per claimant?

[Mr Osborne]

This is a huge system that will apply to millions and millions of people. Let me tell the House what we are going to do. I know that this will come as a complete shock to the Labour party, but we are going to take our time, get it right, and make sure that we do not put everyone on to a new credit with which the system cannot cope, which is exactly what the Labour party did with tax credits. All of us who were Members of Parliament at that time remember people coming to our surgeries who had been treated shockingly by a Labour Administration who had not got their administration right.

As I was saying, we will set the cash limit for the welfare cap at £119 billion. If inflation is higher than forecast, the Government cannot wash their hands of that either. Public services such as the police and transport have to absorb higher inflation, so why should welfare budgets be different? [Interruption.] I am sorry, Mr Deputy Speaker; there is a private conversation going on. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has done more to reform the welfare state than any of that lot.

The charter makes clear what will happen if the welfare cap is breached. The Chancellor must come to Parliament, account for the failure of public expenditure control, and set out the action that will be taken to address the breach. Then the House of Commons—the ultimate guardian of the people’s money—

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Tuesday 25th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T8. Why does the Office for Budget Responsibility say that the deficit this year will be the same as it was last year and the year before? Is not the truth that the Government’s stalled plan on jobs and growth has led to this appalling situation?

[Mr Osborne]

Let me tell the hon. Gentleman the appalling situation. It was an 11% budget deficit that the Opposition left us when they left office—11%. It is now going to be 7.7%. Borrowing—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) asks how much money. I will tell him. The Opposition were borrowing £157 billion. We are now borrowing £118 billion. Borrowing is not going up. It came down from £157 billion to £118 billion, and if the right hon. Gentleman cannot do that maths, no wonder he left the country in such a mess.

Economic Policy

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

What will help the economic recovery of the Humber are, first of all, the low interest rates, which, as I said earlier, are tested every day out there in the bond market. In addition, however, we have opened new enterprise zones in east Yorkshire, we have cut the bridge tolls on the Humber bridge—which I would have hoped that the hon. Lady would welcome—and we have invested in new road projects in and around the area, which had been demanded for years.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

In 2010, the Chancellor pledged to secure the recovery. By 2011, that had changed to maintaining Britain’s triple A credit rating. Is not the Chancellor’s failure to deliver on the first promise the reason for our losing the second?

[Mr Osborne]

We inherited an incredibly difficult situation. The economy had contracted by 6%; we were experiencing the deepest recession in the country’s modern history, and arguably the worst financial crisis in its entire history. Since then we have made difficult decisions, but they have seen interest rates stay low, they have seen the deficit come down, and they have seen the creation of a million jobs. The hon. Gentleman should be welcoming that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

T9. Youth unemployment now stands at a shocking 34% in Tameside and 23% in Stockport. Is not the right thing to do to listen to Labour’s five-point jobs plan, get the bank bonus tax reinstated and invest in 100,000 jobs for young people?

[Mr Osborne]

In his pitch for a job, the hon. Gentleman failed to mention that youth unemployment rose by more than 40% under the Labour Government. There is complete amnesia about the fact that 16 months ago they left this country with high unemployment, a high budget deficit, the deepest recession this country has seen in the last 100 years, and the biggest banking crisis in our history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Andrew Gwynne and George Osborne

Tuesday 22nd March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am very happy to consider a number of ideas that have been put forward, but we have not yet reached that stage. If we sold the bank shares today, we would still be making a loss as a nation. That is an indication of the scale of the banking crisis. When we come to put those banks back in the private sector, I am sure that there will be a healthy debate in this Parliament and elsewhere about how we treat the proceeds.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

Ministers will be aware that there is a sunset clause in the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010, which comes into effect in June. Does the Treasury have a view about renewing this important landmark legislation, which tackles the worst abuses of vulture funds?