Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Daisy Cooper

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Daisy Cooper (St Albans) (LD)]

I welcome the Chancellor to his place. After two anti-growth Budgets, I genuinely wish him well and urge him to deliver a growth Budget this autumn, so that we can avoid more punishing tax rises or painful spending cuts.

Last week, the Prime Minister acknowledged that Brexit had ushered in a “decade of low growth” but did not outline what he thinks is needed to tackle it. On Monday, the Chancellor made what was briefed as a major economic speech on growth, the product of deep thinking, and yet there was barely a mention of the impact of Brexit. Recent studies suggest that deeper alignment with Europe could boost GDP by at least 2.5% to 3.6%, so should the Chancellor’s plan for growth not include the growth and defence partnership with the EU that we have called for?

[John Healey]

The hon. Lady is talking to the person who led the work to establish a defence and security partnership with the European Union and bilateral agreements with other countries, on which we now build both our economic strength and our national security strength.

On the question of the Budget, I ask the hon. Lady to look at what we have done in the seven weeks of this Government. We know that we cannot relieve the cost of living and the cost of business pressures, but we will take steps where we can to do that. I will take that principle into the Budget, and we will back business and do what we can to see growth in more places across the country, because for too long this country has relied on too few of our major cities to drive national growth.