Imran Hussain
Main Page: Imran Hussain (Independent - Bradford East)Department Debates - View all Imran Hussain's debates with the HM Treasury
(2 years, 1 month ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Chris Philp
The hon. Member calls for a reversal of the growth plan, yet she voted in favour of its largest measure just last night. She talks about sidelining the OBR, yet it will be fully scoring the medium-term fiscal plan on 31 October. The right response is to protect our constituents from rising energy prices, and we did that on our second or third day in office. The right response is to get our economy growing, and that is what the growth plan will do.
Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)
Today, the Chief Secretary has made much mention of spending and pay restraint. During the cost of living crisis, the Government have repeatedly told workers that they must accept pay restraint to keep inflation in check while plotting to make further swingeing cuts to public services. Why do the pay restraint and cuts not apply to bankers, too? Is this not the same old Tory ideology of austerity for the oppressed many and luxury for the privileged few?
Chris Philp
If I may respectfully say so, that is nonsense. The tax reductions, including those that the hon. Gentleman voted for last night, apply to everybody in work earning more than £12,570 a year. The national insurance cut and the cut to the basic rate of income tax are tax cuts for everybody, rich and poor alike. The increases in the threshold disproportionately benefit people on lower incomes, and the people on the very lowest incomes now do not pay any national insurance or tax at all. Again, the significant increases that we have seen in the national minimum wage from £5.93 an hour under Labour to £9.50 an hour now most benefit people on low incomes. The Government stand on the side of people on lower wages but doing the right thing by working.