Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)Department Debates - View all Charlie Elphicke's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Mr Osborne
We are confronting the problems that the hon. Lady’s party left this country. If she is seriously trying to blame us for the fact that there was an 11.5% budget deficit, or for a financial crisis that was brewing while the shadow Chancellor was regulating the City, she needs to read her history books.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Is not the priority to preserve the record low interest rates that have helped hard-pressed families and businesses in an extremely difficult time? Would it not be madness to panic and borrow billions more? Would that not put those low interest rates at great risk?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said before, the Institute for Fiscal Studies says that the Labour plans would add £200 billion extra to borrowing. In the end, the clue is in how one answers the questions, and the shadow Chancellor was asked six times on the radio—many will have heard it—whether borrowing would go up under a Labour Government. He did not want to give a clear answer. Why is that? It is because Labour does not want to admit that borrowing would go up. Finally, on the seventh question, he was forced to admit it, but it is the policy that dare not speak its name.