Oral Answers to Questions

Graeme Morrice Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that wage restraint in the private sector and the public sector has helped preserve jobs during the economic shock that we experienced under the previous Government. That is partly a credit to the labour market flexibility of the policies that previous Governments introduced in the 1980s and early 1990s and the last Government did not reverse. The wage restraint has helped us preserve more jobs than would otherwise have been the case in the public sector, which is why at least until recently it was supported by the Labour party.

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

23. Will the Chancellor confirm, however, that after three years of flatlining growth and with prices still rising faster than wages, working people are on average £1,500 a year worse off than in 2010?

[Mr Osborne]

People have been helped with their low mortgage rates which our credible economic policy is delivering. They are helped by the increase in the personal allowance—£600 this year, £700 next year. They will be helped by our tax-free child care, but above all they are helped by an economy that is turning the corner. The worst thing for living standards, the worst thing for household incomes, would be a return to the disastrous economic policies of the Labour party.