Oral Answers to Questions Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: HM Treasury

Oral Answers to Questions

Seema Malhotra Excerpts
Tuesday 15th November 2022

(1 year, 12 months ago)

Commons Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeremy Hunt Portrait Jeremy Hunt
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

My hon. Friend will know that Margaret Thatcher said that there is nothing moral about spending money you do not have, precisely because of what my hon. Friend says: it passes the burden on to future generations to pay it back. Currently, our debt to GDP ratio is about 98% and we are spending debt interest of £22 billion more in the year to date than at the same time last year—that is more than the entire budget of the Home Office. So I absolutely agree with her.

Seema Malhotra Portrait Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
- View Speech - Hansard - -

Our growth rate in the 12 years since 2010 has been just 1.4%, which is lower than the OECD average, and behind that of the USA, Canada and Germany. The public should have an answer to this: why does the Chancellor think that is?

Jeremy Hunt Portrait Jeremy Hunt
- View Speech - Hansard - - - Excerpts

What the public know is that unemployment is the lowest for nearly half a century under a Conservative Government.