Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Harriett Baldwin

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

The Chancellor does not need to worry; he has no responsibility for Reform.

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

I welcome the Chancellor to his new role. I paid close attention yesterday to the long speech he made to reset the narrative and drive growth Britain. In paying tribute to his predecessor, will he recognise that she left the highest tax burden on record? Instead of postponing the words he could utter to my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), could he make a short speech today from the Dispatch Box to say that he does not plan to increase the tax burden further?

[John Healey]

I could have spoken a lot longer yesterday. I am grateful to the hon. Member for watching or reading it. In the two years of this Labour Government, we have started to see this country beginning to turn a corner. That is a corner after 14 years in which the previous Tory Governments had a record of low growth and high debt, and a mini-Budget that crashed the British economy and collapsed confidence in Britain’s fiscal strength. This country has huge strengths in its people, its businesses and its communities, who want to seize the future. This is a country in which interest rates have been cut six times since the election; in which borrowing, which is still too high, is down to a six-year low; in which growth—still fragile and under pressure—was fastest in the first half of this year in the G7; and in which productivity and investment are finally, after long Conservative years, beginning to tick up. That is the basis on which we now build.