Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Patricia Gibson

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

I totally respect the hon. Gentleman for raising the concerns of his constituents in the way that he has done. I do not believe that capping prices is the right long-term solution, but we are doing a lot, including payments of £900 per household for people on means-tested benefits, £150 for households with someone disabled living in them and £300 for households with pensioners living in them, precisely because we want to help the people that the hon. Gentleman is talking about. I will be meeting the regulators next week to talk further about what needs to be done with respect to supermarkets.

[Patricia Gibson]

Over the weekend, the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, spoke about how before the Brexit referendum, the Bank of England had set out that the likely consequences of Brexit were

“a weaker pound, higher inflation and weaker growth”.

Does the Chancellor think it is fair that the UK Government’s decision to ignore the stark warnings from the Bank of England are now being paid for by the households who can least afford it?

[Jeremy Hunt]

I am afraid that I do not buy this Brexit narrative from the SNP. Food price inflation has been around 20% in Germany, Sweden, Portugal and Poland in recent times, so this is not a UK-specific issue. We are all dealing with the consequences of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the aftermath of the pandemic, and we are all tackling it with one central focus, which is to bring down inflation as our overriding priority.

Economic Update

Debate between Jeremy Hunt and Patricia Gibson

Monday 17th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Hunt]

It is very difficult to un-invent or un-say things that one has said on the Floor of this House. I am not going to make any commitments today, but let me say that, in my time as Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee, I learned a great deal about how the NHS functions, as indeed I did when I was Health Secretary, and I hope that will be useful to me in my role.

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

The doglike devotion that Tory branch office members in Scotland have for their London bosses was hopelessly exposed when they urged the Scottish Government to follow the disastrous tax plans of the soon-to-be former Prime Minister. Hours later, the same branch office members applauded October’s Chancellor’s abandonment of those plans in a desperate effort to stay on script. Does the current Chancellor agree that those in the Tory branch office in Scotland should apologise to the people of Scotland for seeking to railroad the Scottish Government down a path that would have caused even more pain for struggling households?

[Jeremy Hunt]

The Tory Government the hon. Member so hates have shown ourselves in the last few days to be willing to take tough and difficult decisions if they are right for the country, so here is a tough and difficult decision for her. Independence will make Scotland poorer in every single way, so why does she not abandon it?