Income Tax (Charge)

Tim Roca Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)]

The first Labour Budget in 14 years needs us to take a clear-eyed view of what has been inherited. Looking at the Conservative legacy for our country, we see: terrible, almost non-existent, average earnings growth; lower productivity per worker hour than in every G7 country besides Italy; GDP per capita growth stalling for the longest time since the end of the war; record debt; high taxes; and poor public services. The lack of growth in real wages is unprecedented in the last 200 years of British economic history. That is the Conservatives’ record, and that is what they have to face up to.

Particularly savage, as hon. Members have pointed out, were the cuts to public investment. The Conservative Government inherited a debt-to-GDP ratio in 2010 of 65%. Ten years later, pre-covid, it was 83%. The Conservative Government promised to eliminate the deficit in 2010; then they promised to eliminate it in the 2015 and 2017 elections; and then they gave up the ghost entirely in the 2019 election. After that dazzling record, we were treated to the Liz Truss magic—Liz, a prophet currently not recognised in her own land. She presented a mini-Budget with £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts. There were no forecasts—the Conservatives like the Office for Budget Responsibility today, but they did not like OBR then—and we know what happened. We saw Tory chaos, and we can never go back to that.

When my right hon. Friend came to office as Chancellor of the Exchequer and looked under the hood, what did she find? More chaos: unfunded policy decisions; undisclosed pressures; and overspends. The OBR listed them. The previous Government promised but did not allocate a penny for the £10 billion infected blood compensation scheme. They promised but did not budget for the £2 billion Horizon Post Office scandal. I am glad to see stability and common sense finally return. There are fiscal rules that make sense and will be adhered to; we are bringing the current budget into balance, so that we do not borrow to fund day-to-day spending; and we are moving to a proper recognition of net financial debt that takes into account investment that delivers. Those sound, sensible decisions put us on a sustainable path. Compare that to a Conservative party that would rather we continued

“to founder under old habits, rotting institutions,”

and that is content for Britain’s hull to be “encrusted with nostalgia”, and for us to drift off into the 21st century.

[Luke Taylor (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tim Roca]

I will not; I have only 25 seconds left. That is the story of national decline that the Conservative party was writing for our country. We will not stand for it. We are going to build a better, greener, fairer future for our country.