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Debate between Seema Malhotra and Jeremy Hunt(1 year, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Jeremy Hunt
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 (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
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
What the public know is that unemployment is the lowest for nearly half a century under a Conservative Government.