Oral Answers to Questions

Gill Furniss Excerpts

Tuesday 17th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

10. What recent steps he has taken to help reduce economic inequality.

[Gill Furniss (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

16. What fiscal steps he is taking to reduce poverty in the most deprived areas.

[Ruth Jones (Newport West) (Lab)]

17. What recent steps he has taken to help reduce economic inequality in Newport West constituency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Gentleman is simply wrong. By raising the primary threshold to £12,500, we have ensured that the first £12,500 that anyone earns is completely free of national insurance and income tax. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has called it

“the best way to help low and middle earners through the tax system”.

That is what this Government are about.

[Gill Furniss]

The cost of living crisis is causing immense hardship for my constituents in Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough, many of whom have been struggling for the past 12 years of this Government’s austerity policies. Can the Chancellor look me in the eye and tell me that he is doing everything he can to prevent my constituents from falling into a never-ending cycle of poverty, particularly given that the Prime Minister admitted last week that he believes the Government have not done enough?

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Lady talks about the record of previous Governments over the past decade but, as I have mentioned to her previously, the number of people living in absolute poverty has fallen by more than 1 million since the Conservative-led Government were elected in 2010. That is a record of which we are very proud. She talks of austerity and, to bring her up to date, public spending over the course of this Parliament is growing at a record rate, both on investment and on day-to-day spending, so we can support strong investment in all the public services on which her constituents rely.