Finance (No. 2) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Julie Hilling

Tuesday 1st April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Julie Hilling]

This is the sort of speech that raises my blood pressure. Where does the hon. Gentleman believe the recession started? Does he agree that the global economic crash started in America? Does he accept that his party in opposition argued for less financial regulation? What would he have done when the crash came—let the banks go and leave everything else to go into a depression?

[Charlie Elphicke]

I apologise to the hon. Lady if I have raised her blood pressure. In England, the NHS will look after her very well; it has an increasingly good record.

I turn to where the Labour party has managed to get to. We have set out a clear economic plan, through which we have successfully cut the deficit by a third and cut taxes on average by £705 for hard-working people. We have managed to support business and cut business taxes, which the anti-business Labour party has taken to opposing of late. It says it supports the welfare cap, but in media interviews it wants to exempt this and that benefit from it. We have managed to take firm action to control immigration and we have plans for better skills for our young people, to give them a better future.

Finance (No. 4) Bill

Debate between Charlie Elphicke and Julie Hilling

Thursday 19th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Charlie Elphicke]

On the contrary, I am really delighted that we have delivered on the pensions triple lock guarantee. Some hon. Members might recall that back in April 2000—it was a long time ago so perhaps the hon. Lady has forgotten—the basic state pension rose by 75p. That was the kind of care and concern we saw for pensioners from the Labour party, whereas the Conservative party is ensuring that we have the highest ever increase in the basic state pension, in cash terms, of £5.30 a week.

[Julie Hilling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way because he makes this link between the 75p increase, which did not go down well at the time but was based on inflation, and this increase, which is of course also based on inflation. Pensioners will get no benefit whatever—no increase in their pension—from this amount. It simply compensates them for the rate of inflation. In fact, they will lose out because it is based on the consumer prices index, not the retail prices index. For most pensioners, the inflation they feel is much closer to RPI; indeed it is above that because of the way their expenditure has to be made.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The hon. Lady forgets that the way the triple lock works involves not just inflation but earnings. At the moment, earnings are not rising at a great rate of knots because of the massive economic mismanagement of the Labour party that this Government are trying to put right, and that is not being assisted by the chaos in the eurozone. Over time, however, earnings will outstrip inflation and I suspect that will happen in the latter part of this year, so that has a bearing on age-related allowances.