Charter for Budget Responsibility
Debate between Richard Fuller and Torsten Bell(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Torsten Bell
I thank the two Front-Bench spokespeople, one of whom spoke admirably briefly. I will not repeat the case for these changes, given that we have heard that both opposition parties are happy to support the Government’s changes to the charter, so I will just respond directly to the questions.
I say to the Lib Dems spokesperson that it is always good to hear anybody praising Sweden in any debate. On the questions about scrutiny, I do not think he gives enough credit to his hon. Friends on the Finance Bill, who have spent many hours scrutinising the policies, and I am sure they would be upset to hear his lack of faith in them today. Directly on his question about transparency, I think that is important, and that is why we are maintaining the two forecasts a year, despite there being only one fiscal event.
The Opposition spokesperson asked why we are making these changes now, and the answer is that in our manifesto we committed to one fiscal event a year. The IMF has come forward with sensible recommendations to reinforce that, and we are just responding to the IMF’s recommendations. He asked a question about the range contained in the previous charter, and that has been removed because it applied only at the spring forecast, and we are no longer carrying out a fiscal assessment at the spring forecasts. He asked about the IFS report suggesting a dashboard rather than fiscal rules. I can tell him that there will be no change to the fiscal rules, although I obviously always enjoy reading any think-tank’s reports, and I would point out that we have already doubled the headroom against the fiscal rules.
More importantly, I was sad to hear the Opposition spokesperson’s remarks more generally, because I always enjoy his normal perkiness, at least outside this Chamber, but he has turned into a gloomster.
Torsten Bell
He is a total gloomster. He has totally ignored the record monthly surplus for the public finances. He has ignored the fact that wages are up, business investment is up and GDP has grown the fastest of any European G7 economy. He has ignored the fact that GDP per capita grew in 2025, after flatlining in the last year of the Tory Government and falling during the previous Parliament. He has ignored inflation falling and interest rates falling. I think it is right for the gloomster to be gloomy about his party’s prospects, but not to be gloomy about the UK economy. On that basis, I commend this motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Richard Fuller and Torsten Bell(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Richard Fuller (North Bedfordshire) (Con)
Persistently high inflation and fears that things will get tougher for their children are top issues for the British public, but the Office for Budget Responsibility’s assessment of Labour’s plans was that:
“Growth in real household disposable income per person is projected to fall… to around ¼ per cent a year… well below the last decade’s average”.
Minister, why is the sum of all this Government’s economic policies condemning the British public to such a despairing prospect?
Torsten Bell
Mr Speaker, that is called leading with your chin. Members on the Conservative Benches were in power in the last Parliament, which saw living standards fall by 2.9%. Living standards have already risen under this Government by 1.5%, because we are turning around their mess day after day after day.