Fuel Prices and the Cost of Living

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Wednesday 16th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Ms Eagle]

I have given way to the hon. Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke).

The House of Commons Library has estimated that that reduction would cost £700 million and take nearly 3p a litre off the price of petrol.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Ms Eagle]

I always give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

The hon. Lady is always enormously gracious and generous in giving way. The Labour party is now proposing tax cuts, and has not proposed any serious spending cuts. Does it just want the country to go bankrupt?

[Ms Eagle]

The hon. Gentleman should not believe the propaganda from Tory central office. Of course we do not want the country to go bankrupt. We had a plan that would have halved the deficit, rather than dealing with it in four years. If I were in the Conservative party, I would not be quite so proud of producing the third largest fiscal consolidation—public spending cuts in ordinary language—of the top 29 industrialised countries, beaten only by Iceland and Ireland. As the hardship and the squeeze on living standards in this country become clearer in the coming year, the Government will come to rue their decision to cut too far and too fast. People will suffer day in and day out as a result of that decision.