Kerry McCarthy
Main Page: Kerry McCarthy (Labour - Bristol East)Department Debates - View all Kerry McCarthy's debates with the HM Treasury
(13 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Speaker
Order. There is no requirement or need for the Chancellor to comment on Opposition policy. I would have thought that we had grasped that point by now.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
In reaction to this year’s Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that, if the Chancellor is to meet his borrowing targets, he will be
“now even more dependent on a bounce back in the rate of economic growth from 2013”.
Borrowing has already been £1.5 billion higher in the first two months of this financial year than it was in the same period last year, as the Chancellor’s tax rises and spending cuts kick in. If growth outturns fail to meet the forecasts, will the Government change their plans on borrowing?
Mr Osborne
When the director of the IFS was asked this month:
“Have things changed so much in the past 12 months that you would expect the Government to change course now?”
he replied, “No”. In fact, the advice of the IMF is also that now would be the wrong time to adjust macro-economic policies, while the Governor of the Bank of England at Mansion house said that we should not adjust the macro-economic mix. The truth is that the Labour Opposition, who got us into this mess, have absolutely no answers for getting us out of it. Is it not striking that the shadow Chancellor gave a speech last week with his big new economic policy, and not a single Labour MP has mentioned it yet?