Taxes

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Wednesday 12th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

If the hon. Gentleman looks at absolute poverty after housing costs, he will find very significant reductions for children, pensioners and across the piece during the vast majority of our time in office.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Will the shadow Chancellor give way?

[Jerome Mayhew]

He has only just walked in!

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Tomlinson]

One of the things that has changed is that Conservative Members seem to have found £47 billion down the back of the sofa and are coming forward with plans that are not deliverable, just like they did when they were in government. They have done the job of a losing Opposition—we have been there in the past—whereby numbers used in opposition are not serious or credible. We all know where that ends up.

The Conservatives said recently that they would slash taxes and pay for it with £47 billion of fairyland spending cuts. For context, that is the equivalent of firing every police officer in the country. Of course, I am not saying that they will do that or that they have joined the “defund the police” brigade, but what would they do? We do not really know, because all we have is a menu without a price list.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

One unexplored area we could look at to raise some of the money we need is selling the brass neck of the Conservatives on the commodities market. Having cheered when Liz Truss delivered her mini-Budget, they now have the gall to lecture us about fiscal responsibility.

[Dan Tomlinson]

And the Conservatives have the gall to lecture us about managing the public finances well. They say that they want to cut civil service numbers. Between 2016 and when the Conservatives left office, there were 130,000 more civil servants. The former Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip and former Prime Minister said that he would cut civil service numbers by 91,000; they then went up. In October ’23—when the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Grantham and Bourne (Gareth Davies), was in my role—the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) unveiled an immediate cap on civil service numbers and pledged to cut them by 66,000; they then went up. Between May 2022 and July 2024, the numbers went up in every single quarter. I am not sure that the public would leave the Conservatives’ restaurant at all satisfied if they bought the items on their menu, because everything they have promised does not seem to turn into reality.

I will conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker.