The Economy
Debate between John McDonnell and David T C Davies(9 years ago)
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John McDonnell
We have raised this matter time and again. I think that Members on both sides of the House found it incongruous that, at the same time as the Chancellor was seeking to cut working families’ tax credits, he was reducing inheritance tax for the wealthiest families in our country. People saw that as being basically unfair.
There is much that we hope the Chancellor will address in next week’s statement. We agree that we must continuously bear down on the deficit and debt, but that has to be done with realistic good judgment and fairness. I say that the judgment must be realistic because it will undermine confidence in government if we go through another comprehensive spending review like the one in 2010, when the Chancellor announced that he would eliminate the cyclically adjusted current deficit in the five-year period—that is, by this year—whereas he has cleared only half of it. In the last financial year, the current budget deficit stood at a massive £44 billion. I also remember the Chancellor saying in 2010 that he would reduce the debt to 69% of GDP. It now stands at over 80%.
The mistakes of the last CSR should not be repeated in this one. Our fiscal rules must be realistic, achievable and fair. The Chancellor’s rules, for all the revisions in recent weeks, have been none of those things.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have criticised the Government on many occasions for cutting too fast. Is he now suggesting that we should have cut faster? If so, we will be more than happy to co-operate with him.
John McDonnell
I would be happy to have that co-operation at any stage. What we said to the Chancellor five years ago was that he was going too fast and that he should have been investing in growth, which would have enabled us to reduce the deficit. He promised to reduce the deficit and debt in five years, but he is going to do it in 10. That is a doubling of the target.