Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Debate between Tim Farron and George Osborne

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I am going to come on to speak about the disability benefits and our way forward, but I have made it very clear—I have just said it—that where we have made a mistake, where we have got things wrong, we listen and we learn. That is precisely what we have done. Where is the apology from the Labour party for the things that they got wrong? Why don’t they take a leaf out of that book? Why don’t they get up and apologise for the countless decisions that added to the deficit—that bankrupted our country?

The progress we have made on social justice did not happen by accident. It happened because we in this Government set out to turn our economy around, to control spending, to back business and, yes, to reform welfare.

[Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)]

Will the Chancellor give way?

[Mr Osborne]

I will give way in a moment to my former partner in the coalition Government that undertook many of these welfare reforms. The reform has meant difficult decisions to strengthen the incentives to find work and the sanctions for not doing so; to make sure that every hour extra that people work is rewarded, instead of seeing them trapped in dependency; and to cap benefit payments so that our welfare system is fair both to those who need it and to those who pay for it. It has not been easy, and it has often been opposed, but the truth is that many of the acts of progressive social change that we seek to achieve in government are difficult and they are opposed. In any democracy, you have to fight to make lasting improvements in society, and that is what we have done.

[Tim Farron]

I thank the Chancellor for giving way, and I want to associate myself with the remarks that he made earlier about the appalling situation in Brussels.

Does the Chancellor agree with me that the one thing that is more dangerous for our economy than his remaining Chancellor is that we might leave the European Union; and does he agree that his being called out by his former colleague as acting not in the economic interests of the country, but in a short-term political way, introduces a risk that the referendum will be a referendum on him, not on the future of our role in Europe? Will he act in the national interest and resign?