Spending Round 2019

Wes Streeting Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great experience and is right to highlight issues relating to children’s services. I can assure her that in the numbers that I have given today she will see, beyond the excellent investment in schools, investment across the board that will benefit children, especially vulnerable children, through social services in particular. She also made a good and valid point about human capital and the need to view it in a different way, and that is something that I am very interested in pursuing in the Treasury.

[Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)]

If Dominic Cummings had not sacked his special adviser, he might have come up with a better speech.

I note that the Chancellor did not mention the growth figures, which is not surprising given that our economy is shrinking and every major sector of it—services, manufacturing, construction—is struggling. Is it not the case that, whether we are talking about the future of those industries or the spending plans that the Chancellor has set out today, every single promise is at risk from the no-deal recession that his Government are pursuing with their reckless no-deal policy?

[Sajid Javid]

The hon. Gentleman claimed that I had not mentioned growth figures. There are no new growth figures today because there is no OBR forecast, but I did refer to growth: in fact, I drew attention to the IMF forecast that we would grow faster this year than France, Italy and Japan.

The hon. Gentleman also talked of the risk to the economy. The risk to the economy is the uncertainty of not leaving the EU, and we must leave by 31 October. If he wants to end that uncertainty, he knows what he must do tonight.