Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between George Osborne and Brian H. Donohoe

Tuesday 13th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not enough to eliminate the deficit. We then have to get our national debt down. It is too high and leaves us exposed to the next economic shock. We do not want to go into the next economic shock with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 80%. That is precisely why, in good economic times, we need to be running an overall budget surplus. That is the only credible and sustained way to get national debt down. That is the way to fix the roof when the sun is shining.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Was it not the case that the right hon. Gentleman’s boss, the Prime Minister, said that he would balance the books by 2015?

[Mr Osborne]

What we have done is cut the deficit by a half. We have neither gone faster than we said we were going to go, nor gone slower than we said we were going to go. We have stuck to our spending plans when people were urging us to take either course. To get lectures in managing the public finances from the Labour party is extraordinary.

The Economy and Living Standards

Debate between George Osborne and Brian H. Donohoe

Thursday 12th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a moment, but let me make some progress. I know that about 50 Members want to speak in this debate—[Hon. Members: “Not on your side.”] Well, we will hear. No doubt Labour Members can all get up on their feet and repeat what they said last year .

I have done something that I know we are not supposed to do in this place, because I actually bothered to read what the shadow Chancellor said in the House last year. Here we are in the privacy of the House of Commons where no one is listening, but what were his pearls of wisdom? In this exact debate last year he issued a stark warning that the British economy would “flatline” unless we abandoned our plan immediately. Since he made that prediction, we have stuck to our plan and our economy has grown by more than 3%.

Last year in this debate the shadow Chancellor said that business investment would “stall”, but it has since grown by almost 9%. He told us that unemployment would rise, but since he made that prediction more than 800,000 new jobs have been created. He warned ominously that youth unemployment would rise too, but it is down by 100,000 over the past 12 months. From re-reading the speeches of the shadow Chancellor, I have discovered that he performs a very useful function. He is an infallible guide to the future performance of the British economy: whatever he predicts, we can be sure that the exact opposite happens.

[Mr Donohoe]

Will the Chancellor answer a simple question about employment? How many people are on zero-hours contracts?

[Mr Osborne]

I do not have the number the hon. Gentleman asks for here, but there were zero-hours contracts under the previous Labour Government and there are Labour councils that use zero-hours contracts. As those on the Labour Front Bench have pointed out, not all zero-hours contracts are bad. One measure in the Queen’s Speech that was not mentioned by the shadow Chancellor—indeed, he did not actually address the speech in his remarks—will ban exclusivity with zero-hours contracts. Labour had 13 years; the shadow Chancellor was in charge of economic policy for 13 years and could have taken such a step, but he did not. I suggest that Labour Members hold their tongues and come with the Government through the Division Lobbies as we do something about an abuse that they did absolutely nothing to crack down on.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Brian H. Donohoe

Tuesday 28th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Credit conditions for small businesses have been one of the huge challenges since the banking crash. The better news is that conditions are starting to ease, as the most recent surveys show, but I am the first to say that the job is not done. That is why we are shifting the focus of the funding for lending scheme with the Bank of England onto small business lending and why we have introduced the British business bank, which did not exist before. We are doing all those things to support credit, including for small businesses.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

Following that answer, will the Chancellor tell us how many firms have actually been helped by the business investment bank?

[Mr Osborne]

The British business bank is lending to intermediaries that support non-bank lending to small firms. [Hon. Members: “How many?”] There was no British business bank before. The only bank that the Opposition helped to take into public ownership was the Royal Bank of Scotland, because they completely failed to regulate it.