Oral Answers to Questions

William Bain Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Osborne]

I can today report to the House that in the past year Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has saved an additional £1 billion by tackling fraud and error in the tax credit system. For many years, the flaws in the shambolic administration of tax credits went completely ignored by the Labour party, causing misery for hundreds of thousands of families and costing the taxpayer billions of pounds, but we are now sorting out this mess.

[Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)]

T3. Has the Chancellor had an opportunity to note the findings of last week’s report from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, which show the contraction in public and private demand since emerging from the recession to be higher in this country than in any comparable major economy? Does that not show that the Government are cutting too far and too fast?

[Mr Osborne]

First, the report recommends higher taxes and higher interest rates—perhaps that has become part of the Labour party’s official policy. I think it is worth looking at what the CBI has said this week. I have already quoted what it said when I was asked what the outcome would have been had Britain followed Labour’s plans—it said there would have been weaker economic growth—but its director general has also said:

“We are rock solid behind the chancellor’s plans to eliminate the structural deficit within a parliament”,

which are an

“essential part of putting the economy back on a stable footing”.

That is the voice of British business’s view of the deficit. [Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor says that is not true. A couple of months ago he was quoting the CBI across the Dispatch Box at me, but now that the CBI says that Labour’s economic policies would lead to weaker economic growth, he is in denial about that too.