Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Hands and Luciana Berger

Tuesday 21st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and he is absolutely right. The reliable way to reduce debt effectively over time is to run a surplus in normal time. Public sector net debt as a share of GDP reached 80.8% last year and the Government are committed to getting debt falling as a share of GDP from here on.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I note that the hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) is a new Member. Perhaps he might have forgotten that before 2015, the Chancellor said that he would eradicate the deficit by this election. May I ask the Minister to confirm that due to the recent fiscal changes in his July Budget, the OBR forecast that an additional £26.8 billion would be borrowed by the public sector between 2016 and 2017, and is it not the case that the Government have missed every single one of their deficit reduction targets?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Greg Hands and Luciana Berger

Tuesday 16th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Hands]

The hon. Gentleman ignores the overall employment picture over the last Parliament, in which 2 million new jobs were created and unemployment fell by 1 million. It sounds to me as if the Labour party is starting this Parliament as it started the last one: in a mode of deficit denial and failing to face up to Britain’s problems.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Despite the Chancellor telling us last week he was going to get our economy into surplus, we are still £75 billion in the red. Will the Chief Secretary set out in detail how he will eliminate the deficit, specifically on the £12 billion of welfare cuts?

[Greg Hands]

To be fair to the hon. Lady, at least she has remembered the deficit today. I have one question for her. During the election campaign, Labour was denying—