Tom Blenkinsop
Main Page: Tom Blenkinsop (Labour - Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)Department Debates - View all Tom Blenkinsop's debates with the HM Treasury
(11 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Danny Alexander
Of course I recognise what the hon. Lady says and that unemployment is a concern right across our economy. Unemployment rates across the economy have been coming down. She refers to the experience in her constituency. Since 2008-09 the number of apprentices in Halifax doubled, so some of the measures that the Government are taking, such as the investment in apprenticeships and the Work programme, are making a difference to her constituents. The most important thing that we can do to continue to support unemployment moving in the right direction is to maintain the credible fiscal policy that this Government have put in place, and not give up on it, as the Opposition would.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
6. What recent assessment he has made of progress on the Government’s target of public sector net debt falling as a share of GDP in 2015-16.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
The independent Office for Budget Responsibility assesses the Government’s performance against the fiscal mandate and supplementary debt target. The OBR’s assessment is that the public sector net debt as a percentage of GDP will be falling by 2016-17.
Tom Blenkinsop
Will the Minister confirm that the Government will have more than doubled the national debt between 2010 and 2015, and that this Government will have increased the national debt by more in five years than it increased in the entire 13 years of the Labour Government?
Sajid Javid
Having brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy and having set the economy ablaze, the Opposition now throw stones at the firefighters. The country will never forget that we had the largest budget deficit when we came to power. We were borrowing £5,000 a second, and that deficit began in 2001, long before the financial crisis. Since then, we have cut it by a quarter, brought back confidence to Britain and created jobs at a record rate.