Fiscal Responsibility and Fairness

Yvonne Fovargue Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Danny Alexander]

I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. I thank him for his support on the measures to support tax avoidance and evasion and on the package of measures that we announced yesterday to support the oil and gas industry, which has been widely welcomed in his constituency and elsewhere. He is absolutely right that although the Labour party might not like the fact that we have a coalition Government, it needs to get used to the idea that that may well be the norm for many years to come. Innovation will be needed in parliamentary procedures and other things to accommodate that.

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

At the beginning of his statement, the Chief Secretary seemed to express concern over the direction of the coalition Budget and some of its measures. Will he confirm that the Liberal Democrats will go through the Lobbies with their coalition partners?

[Danny Alexander]

As I said in my statement, all policy measures in the Budget have been agreed across the coalition. What is being set out is an alternative fiscal scenario for meeting the path of deficit reduction to 2017-18, which is an entirely legitimate thing to do. Labour Members may not like the fact that they crashed the economy, made a mess of the nation’s finances, and have no plan of their own to sort it out, but they should welcome the fact that an alternative plan has been set out today.