Oral Answers to Questions

Caroline Flint Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I visited with my hon. Friend a number of the very successful businesses in his constituency; they are exactly the kind of small and medium-sized businesses that are the backbone of the British economy. They need help with their training, and Halesowen college can help to provide that training to the young people in the area, so they can get the jobs that are being created in his area.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

The Chancellor claims he is on the side of working people but, as far as I can see, he has been afraid to publish an impact assessment of changes to working tax credits on people taking up or remaining in work. Will he guarantee, given last night’s decision and the delay, to look at that and that, in any proposals, he will include an impact assessment on people taking up work, increasing their hours or staying in work and how that affects employment levels?

[Mr Osborne]

We have published an impact assessment, an equalities assessment and a distributional analysis of the measures we produced in the Budget. None of those were ever produced by any Labour Chancellor, so we continue to provide the information that people seek. What matters above all is getting the central judgment right about fixing our economy, making sure we deal with our deficit, and going on delivering economic security for the people the right hon. Lady represents.