Oral Answers to Questions

Laura Farris Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ben Everitt (Milton Keynes North) (Con)]

9. What steps his Department is taking to promote economic stability.

[Laura Farris (Newbury) (Con)]

15. What steps he is taking to ensure sustainable public finances.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Hunt]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; having run a business myself, I know that that certainty and stability is what gives the confidence to invest. I want to reassure him that what I talk about on Thursday will include our plan for growth over the next five years as well as our plan for stability. Both matter, but in the end, as Conservative Members know, wealth is not created by Governments—it is created by businesses.

[Laura Farris]

I know that my right hon. Friend is working intensively to ensure that the United Kingdom can meet its current spending obligations, but can he confirm that the same prudence extends to our national debt? Throughout the summer, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said repeatedly that we cannot allow debt to spiral and we cannot burden future generations with further debt. Does my right hon. Friend share the Prime Minister’s commitment and will he use his statement on Thursday to set out a pathway to debt reduction?

[Jeremy Hunt]

My hon. Friend will know that Margaret Thatcher said that there is nothing moral about spending money you do not have, precisely because of what my hon. Friend says: it passes the burden on to future generations to pay it back. Currently, our debt to GDP ratio is about 98% and we are spending debt interest of £22 billion more in the year to date than at the same time last year—that is more than the entire budget of the Home Office. So I absolutely agree with her.