Autumn Statement

Lord Forsyth of Drumlean Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Deighton]

The fundamental approach of this Government to addressing poverty is to get people back into work and to ensure that real earnings recover and outstrip inflation, as we discussed earlier. In looking at the distributional analysis to see who is contributing towards the benefits, the top 20% pay more than the remaining 80%, so that is how the balance of our distribution looks.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Cross Bench.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Deighton]

I will be delighted to use my expertise as a poacher turned gamekeeper to help structure the profits diversion tax in a way that actually works. The noble Lord is quite right; it will only work ultimately if we capture this on a global basis. That, of course, is the work that is going on. The noble Lord will not be surprised to know that I will not be making any comments on monetary policy, which is a matter for the Bank.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I congratulate my noble friend on his kindness in not repeating the Statement because it is perfectly obvious that the noble Lord would have had nothing to say by way of reply. Does my noble friend think that it is something of a nerve for the parties opposite, including those who have now flown to the Cross Benches, to complain about the Government’s progress in reducing the deficit when they have opposed every spending cut and every initiative by us to increase revenues? Are they not rather like a bunch of arsonists complaining that the fire crew is taking too long to put out the fire?

[Lord Deighton]

As always—and even more so today—it is very difficult to disagree with my noble friend.