Oral Answers to Questions Debate

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Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts
Tuesday 1st July 2025

(2 days, 6 hours ago)

Commons Chamber
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Lindsay Hoyle Portrait Mr Speaker
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I call the shadow Minister.

Richard Fuller Portrait Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)
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Labour’s jobs tax has really clobbered British businesses. The Office for National Statistics says that the number of available jobs is collapsing. Perhaps the Chancellor has not updated herself on how British business thinks about confidence: the Institute of Directors has said today that business confidence has plummeted; the Bank of England is warning of significant declines in wage growth; and the British Chambers of Commerce says that taxes on businesses cannot be increased. The Chancellor has bungled welfare changes, eviscerating confidence in the Prime Minister and blowing an even bigger hole in the public financing, meaning that she will raise taxes yet again this autumn. Will she avoid creating the same damaging uncertainty she did last summer by ruling out from the Dispatch Box today any further tax increases on British businesses?

Rachel Reeves Portrait Rachel Reeves
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I am not going to take lessons from the Conservatives: they increased taxes 25 times. When they increased taxes, it was always ordinary working people who paid the price. In our Budget last year, we protected the payslips of ordinary working people by not increasing their income tax, their national insurance or their VAT, and we did not go ahead with the increase in fuel duty that the Conservatives had planned. Instead of talking down the British economy, why do the Conservatives not back the plans that are backed by British businesses to grow our economy and make working people better off?