Taxes

Noah Law Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sir Mel Stride]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. When it comes to criticising this Government, it is always confusing whether to address those on the Front Bench or on the Back Benches, because they are never quite in the same place.

The big mistake that the Government made was to talk down the economy by going on about this confected black hole of £22 billion—something that the Office for Budget Responsibility has already debunked. The Government should stop using that number. They are the ones who created a black hole of some £6 billion, as I have just set out, and they should focus not on the black hole that they have invented, but on the one they have created. It is that black hole that is creating speculation across the summer about what will happen in autumn, damaging confidence and damaging businesses up and down the country.

[Noah Law (St Austell and Newquay) (Lab)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that regardless of the actual size of the black hole left by the previous Government, it is a significantly larger number than the one he is talking about with respect to the welfare bill?

[Sir Mel Stride]

I am not sure that I fully understood the point, but the hon. Gentleman seems at least to accept that there is a real black hole when it comes to this Government, of at least £6 billion.