Budget: Household Impact

Lord Vinson Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord O’Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, the distributional analysis subsequently published on the government website, as I just outlined, actually shows that if one needed to specifically pick where the impact was felt most severely across the different quintiles of income distribution, it was in the highest 20%.

[Lord Vinson (Con)]

My Lords, when addressing this Question, could the Minister bring to the attention of the House that, according to Treasury figures on 21 July, the debt-servicing costs of our huge borrowings is £1,841 per household? Is it surprising that people feel hard up? That money must come out through tax, VAT and other directions somewhere. Individually per household, that is what is being paid.

[Lord O’Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, I cannot recollect the exact numbers but those suggested by my noble friend sound broadly accurate. It is right to refer to such parameters. Indeed, the approach towards the now preferred way of presenting the distributional analysis is predicated on taking account of the consequences of the amount of public debt and, implicitly with that, the appropriate desire of the Government to reduce that level of debt.