Rosie Wrighting
Main Page: Rosie Wrighting (Labour - Kettering)Department Debates - View all Rosie Wrighting's debates with the HM Treasury
(1 day, 8 hours ago)
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Rachel Reeves
That is just completely wrong. What the OBR says today is that people will be £1,000 a year better off by the end of the forecast period and that GDP per capita will increase by 5.6% after having fallen under the previous Government. Yes, productivity growth was revised down at the Budget, because of the policies of the previous Government. It has not been revised today.
Rosie Wrighting (Kettering) (Lab)
I was a young person while the Tories were in power, and the reality is that they locked my generation out of home ownership, living standards were worse than those of our parents, and the public services we relied on growing up were cut because of decisions made by their Government. I remember the mini-Budget, which meant that I saw interest rates on my student loan rise—a student loan that is so high because of the plan introduced by the coalition Government and because they changed maintenance grants to loans. Does my right hon. Friend agree that only the Labour party can change this country for young people, who finally have a Government that will match their ambition?
Rachel Reeves
When I visited Kettering with my hon. Friend recently, it was just ahead of the capital investment in new SEND provision in her constituency, so that more young people—some of the most vulnerable—can be educated locally in Kettering, with better outcomes for them.
On student finances, the last Government lost control of inflation, and, of course, student loans under plan 2 and other schemes are linked to inflation. Because we have reduced inflation, we will be reducing how much interest people pay on their student loans. That is the best way to help them.