Oral Answers to Questions

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

The personal allowance is increasing from April. We inherited a personal allowance that was £6,475. It is going to be £8,105 in April. That will take 1.1 million people out of tax and deliver a tax cut to 23 million or so basic rate taxpayers. I say to my hon. Friend, to my colleagues in the Conservative party and to my colleagues in the Liberal Democrat party that this is a coalition policy. It was part of the coalition agreement. It was in the Liberal Democrat manifesto, but I am also proud that it is a Conservative Chancellor who is implementing it.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

T4. If the Chancellor had cut less than the Darling plan and at the same time was borrowing less, we would be calling him a genius. What word would he use to describe somebody who has achieved the opposite?

[Mr Osborne]

I did not really understand what the hon. Gentleman was saying. He seemed to suggest that we should be cutting less than the Darling plan, so the Opposition are now abandoning even the deficit reduction plan that they claimed to have when they were last in government. It just shows how all over the place they are.