Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Chris Leslie Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a moment, but let me straightaway address the resignation of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith). I am sorry that my right hon. Friend chose to leave the Government. Let me here, in this House, recognise his achievements in helping to make work pay, protecting the vulnerable and breaking the decades-old cycle of welfare dependency. Together, we had to confront a huge deficit and uncontrolled welfare spending. Of course, there is always robust discussion between the Treasury and the spending Departments when money needs to be saved. The decisions we make to keep our economy secure are always difficult, and where we do not get them right, I have always been prepared to listen and learn.

I am very proud that my right hon. Friend and I worked together longer than any two people who have done our jobs before us in any Government, and we have been part of the team that has reduced the number of people on out-of-work benefits to levels not seen for 40 years, reduced inequality, seen poverty fall, seen child poverty fall and seen pensioner poverty fall, and got a record number of people into work—a long-term economic plan and welfare reform delivering a fairer society for all.

[Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to the Chancellor for giving way. It is less than a week since he stood up to deliver the Budget and made that decision affecting disability independence payments—something that upset many hundreds of thousands of people across this country. He has made a welcome U-turn, but should not he now acknowledge that that decision was a mistake that he should say sorry for?

[Mr Osborne]

I am going to come on to speak about the disability benefits and our way forward, but I have made it very clear—I have just said it—that where we have made a mistake, where we have got things wrong, we listen and we learn. That is precisely what we have done. Where is the apology from the Labour party for the things that they got wrong? Why don’t they take a leaf out of that book? Why don’t they get up and apologise for the countless decisions that added to the deficit—that bankrupted our country?

The progress we have made on social justice did not happen by accident. It happened because we in this Government set out to turn our economy around, to control spending, to back business and, yes, to reform welfare.