Charter for Budget Responsibility

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I was about to pick up on the point that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) just made, which is that the hon. Gentleman has shifted his position in the last few days. The former shadow Chancellor was telling us that the position adopted by the Labour party on this charter sends the wrong message to the general public, and in the brief period when he was shadow Chancellor he argued from this Dispatch Box that we should run a surplus. At the time I think he was trying to make the argument that the people who suffer most when Governments lose control of the public finances are precisely the most vulnerable in society and those who lose their jobs or get cast out of work. It is not trade union barons who lose their jobs when the economy fails; it is the poorest, not the richest in society who pay the price, and the most progressive thing that a Government can do is to run a sound fiscal policy and provide financial stability to the working people of this country. That is what we are debating.

What are the objections to our approach? There are those who say—including in the last couple of days—that the economy is not strong enough and that we need more growth before we cut the deficit. That advice on growth and the deficit normally comes from those who gave us the greatest recession and the largest deficit in our modern history, but let us put that aside for a moment. The British economy has been pretty much the fastest growing of any major advanced economy in the world, this year, last year and the year before.

We have had the latest jobs numbers today and they show we have more people in work than at any point in the history of this country—the highest employment rate in the history of this country. Unemployment is down 79,000, full-time work is up and, while inflation is falling, pay is now rising strongly at 3% a year. This is the strong economy that the British people have built with their hard work and sacrifice. If this is not the time to be reducing your deficit and your debt, when is? We are aiming for a budget surplus in 2019, because if we are not running a surplus nine years or more after the end of the recession, when the economy has been growing for these nine years, when will we ever run a surplus? The real answer from people who oppose this charter is never. Speaking of which, we turn to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann).

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

When the Labour Members of the Treasury Committee rightly identified this proposal as a gimmick in the Treasury Committee hearings in July, did the Governor of the Bank of England, or any of the other eminent economic brains we questioned, give a single word of defence for this political gimmick?

[Mr Osborne]

It is not a political gimmick to have sound public finances. What is a political gimmick is coming out on the eve of your conference with some policy that says you support what we are doing, and then two weeks later turning up in the House of Commons and voting against it. Indeed, the hon. Member for Bassetlaw has described the policy of the Labour party as “a huge joke”.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Tuesday 5th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

If we are able to freeze petrol prices for the rest of this Parliament, the price will 20p a litre lower than it would have been if we had stuck with the plans that the shadow Chancellor advocated at the last general election. That would mean, as my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary was just reminding us, a saving of over £10 every time people filled up their average car. That is what this Government are doing; by fixing the public finances, we are able to help people.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

When the Chancellor became Chancellor, unleaded petrol was £1.19 a litre. Can he tell us how much it is today?

[Mr Osborne]

It depends, of course, where you buy it. The last price I saw at a petrol station was around £1.35, but it would have been 20p higher if we had stuck with the last Government’s plans—the hon. Gentleman voted for them—in the last Labour Budget. That is the truth, and it is because we are fixing the public finances and fixing the economy that we can avoid these disastrous Labour tax rises.

Economic Policy

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Monday 25th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right about the credit default swap rate. As I have said, the credibility of our policies is tested every week when we have to borrow all this money to pay for Labour’s deficit, and we are borrowing it at record low rates.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Would not the honourable course be for the Chancellor to say at the next Cabinet meeting, “I’m going outside and I may be some time”?

[Mr Osborne]

The problem with the hon. Gentleman is that he is pretty free with his calls for people to go. The last person he called on to go was the shadow Chancellor.

LIBOR (FSA Investigation)

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Monday 2nd July 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

If tomorrow morning the elected Treasury Committee comes up with its own terms of reference, as it is appointed by Parliament to do, will the Chancellor accept them or ride roughshod over them?

[Mr Osborne]

It is for the House of Commons and the House of Lords to pass a motion, so ultimately it is a matter for the House.

Eurozone Crisis

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Thursday 27th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we are going to seek to rebalance those responsibilities. He also draws our attention to the fact that Greece and Spain are run by socialist Governments, but I do not want to intrude on their politics.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Having just taken credit for letting Greece off half its debt at the expense of, among others, British pensioners, what provisions would the Chancellor advise British institutions to make in regard to Italian debt?

[Mr Osborne]

I am not providing that advice across the Dispatch Box, but the Financial Services Authority, the Bank of England and the Treasury monitor British financial institutions to ensure that they are appropriately prepared for things that might happen. The European Banking Authority test that I have talked about takes into account a mark to market on the sovereign debt exposures of countries such as Italy and Spain.

Jobs and Growth

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Wednesday 12th October 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

In precisely the advice that the right hon. Gentleman reads out, the IMF, in its current forecasts for the UK economy, is very specific that the UK should not change its fiscal stance. It has consistently recommended that this country undertake credible deficit reduction. The Government have set out many proposals—controversial proposals—to get our budget deficit down, but in the 16 months that we have been in office we have heard not one single suggestion from the shadow Chancellor on how he would get the deficit down.

[John Mann]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

I will take the hon. Gentleman’s intervention in a second.

Last week, the Opposition tabled an amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill that would have cost this country £11 billion. That one amendment on one day in this House of Commons shows how completely incredible they are.

Banking

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Wednesday 9th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Is the Chancellor confident enough to predict that as a consequence of this package there will be more small businesses on the high streets of Retford, Worksop and Harworth at the end of this year?

[Mr Osborne]

I am confident about saying that the situation for small and medium-sized businesses in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and elsewhere will improve. The situation is not going to be transformed overnight—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) and others seem to have complete amnesia about the fact that Labour presided over the biggest banking crisis and the deepest recession since the 1930s. Labour Members got elected on the slogan crafted by the shadow Chancellor, “No more boom and bust”, and then gave us the biggest boom and the biggest bust, and we are recovering the economy from the mess that they left.

Bank Bonuses

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Tuesday 11th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

Of course I shall be happy to look at my hon. Friend’s constituency case. He highlights the central issue that the previous Government completely failed to address: how to increase lending to the small and medium-sized business sector. That is one of our central economic objectives; that is why we are in discussions with the banks. The previous Government achieved nothing in that regard; we hope to achieve something, and we will come to the House and report on our progress.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

In the Chancellor’s judgment, what is the maximum bonus that Barclays should offer its chief executive Bob Diamond for 2010?

[Mr Osborne]

Less than he was paid in 2009.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Tuesday 12th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

It will be my great good fortune to visit Yorkshire later this week to hand out the Yorkshire Post awards in Leeds. My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have introduced a regional tax cut for the first time in British history, which means that businesses that are set up outside the south-east of England will benefit from a national insurance holiday on the first few employees that they bring on board. We have also got rid of Labour’s job-destroying jobs tax, which, as we now read in the memoirs of various senior members of the Labour Government, they tried to dissuade the previous Prime Minister from introducing.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

T3. As confirmed by the OBR and Treasury officials to the Treasury Committee, the Budget is predicated on having in this Parliament an extra 700,000 EU migrants net living in this country. Where will they live and work? How will they be spread across the United Kingdom?

[Mr Osborne]

The Office for Budget Responsibility is using the statistics from the Office for National Statistics. Of course, one of the decisions that the previous Government made was to allow countries to join the European Union without any transitional controls whatsoever on their citizens’ movement to the United Kingdom. We are living with the consequence of that decision.

Financial Services Regulation

Debate between George Osborne and Lord Mann

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is right. I was sitting in the Mansion House when the former Prime Minister, with great prophecy, announced that we were embarking in the summer of 2007 on a new golden age for the City of London. Unfortunately, as with everything else that was golden that the previous Prime Minister touched, that turned to lead.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

What systemic risks specifically created the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and how does the Chancellor intend to regulate the top 10 large investment banks and protect the British economy against such collapses?

[Mr Osborne]

The risks around Lehman Brothers are well documented.