Luciana Berger
Main Page: Luciana Berger (Liberal Democrat - Liverpool, Wavertree)Department Debates - View all Luciana Berger's debates with the HM Treasury
(9 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Greg Hands
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and he is absolutely right. The reliable way to reduce debt effectively over time is to run a surplus in normal time. Public sector net debt as a share of GDP reached 80.8% last year and the Government are committed to getting debt falling as a share of GDP from here on.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
I note that the hon. Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Rishi Sunak) is a new Member. Perhaps he might have forgotten that before 2015, the Chancellor said that he would eradicate the deficit by this election. May I ask the Minister to confirm that due to the recent fiscal changes in his July Budget, the OBR forecast that an additional £26.8 billion would be borrowed by the public sector between 2016 and 2017, and is it not the case that the Government have missed every single one of their deficit reduction targets?