Speeches by Fox.

“Extending the freeze on income tax thresholds will cost working families £900 a year. It will also drag many pensioners into paying income tax for the first time. Why is the Minister hitting these low-income families to pay more for welfare?”

“One of the first acts of this Labour Government was to hose money at striking train drivers to buy them off. Does my right hon. Friend share my fear that we will see the cost of a publicly run railway increase dramatically at the cost of taxpayers, and that we will also see services get worse?”

“T2. Unemployment is higher today than it was on the day the Chancellor took office. Will she tell the House why that is the case?”

“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for introducing this debate on behalf of the nearly 3 million people who signed the petition to stop digital ID. Some 5,300 of them were from my constituency, and I thank them for part…”

“I am grateful for your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. Perhaps I can rephrase that: the Chancellor inadvertently misled the public to justify those tax rises.”

“For the first time in its history, the OBR was forced to correct the record about the forecasting process in the run-up to the Budget. Is not the reason that the Chancellor selectively leaked information from the OBR to mislead the public and justify tax rises?”

“In his report, Sir Brian Leveson made a number of recommendations to reduce the Crown court backlog. Many of those recommendations are welcome, but curtailing the right to a jury trial is not one of them. Will the Secretary of State instruct his Department to publish the modelling it will have undertaken, so that we ca…”

“Will the Secretary of State give way?”

“Will the Minister give way?”

“Last year, the Chancellor increased public spending by £72 billion, financed by £40 billion of extra taxes and £32 billion of extra borrowing. That was all justified, we were told, by a mysterious black hole that only the Labour Front-Bench team could see. The OBR certainly could not find it. These tax rises were so la…”

“The closure of the ExxonMobil plant is bad news for the whole of the UK economy, and it is the direct result of Labour’s economic and energy policies. Does the Minister accept that by pushing up taxes and energy prices, his Government are making the UK an uncompetitive environment for energy-intensive industries? What …”

“I thank the Home Secretary for her statement. Labour’s change of course is most welcome, and she has outlined some useful steps. My constituents want to see the Holiday Inn in Bridgwater emptied of migrants and returned to commercial use. To achieve that, she will have to be bolder, so does she agree that anyone who ar…”

“The decision by Liberal Democrats on Somerset council to cancel the Cross Rifles roundabout upgrade in Bridgwater has left residents facing severe congestion. Combined with a new one-way system on Salmon Parade and East Quay, it has left Bridgwater gridlocked, and my constituents now face longer and more costly journey…”

“During the general election, the Labour party said that it would not increase income tax, national insurance or VAT. It repeated that it would not increase taxes on working people. In its manifesto, it said it would increase spending by only £9.5 billion and that that was to be paid for by £7.3 billion in extra taxes a…”

“I would suggest two reasons. First, our economy has slowed down as a result of the very tax increases that the Chancellor has imposed. Secondly, the feral Labour Back Benchers have made them lose their nerve. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor therefore cannot control public expenditure in any way at all. The Britis…”

“The hon. Gentleman will know that the Liberal Democrats joined a coalition Government in 2010 with the Conservatives. We inherited a deficit of £156 billion in 2010—11% of GDP—and it took 10 years, to 2020, to reduce that steadily to 2% of GDP. For all the moaning and whining from the Labour Benches about austerity, wh…”

“Would my hon. Friend agree that what has actually changed is the inability of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to control their Back Benchers, who now feel free to demand whatever public expenditure they think is convenient?”

“Does my hon. Friend agree that this very long lead-in period for the Budget has caused enormous uncertainty for businesses, which have faced a string of briefings in the media about every possible tax rise, and that the very date that the Chancellor has chosen for her Budget is itself causing more uncertainty and delay…”

“Two days before Kaddour-Cherif was released, the Justice Secretary said he had “introduced the strictest checks ever seen in our prison system to stop similar unacceptable errors in future.” Were they not implemented, or are they not strict enough?”

“Thank you.”