Speeches by Dean.

“Mr Rathi, you will have received a wide range of feedback about the proposed redress scheme for motor finance. Could you summarise the feedback you have had from financial firms, consumer groups, and where the FCA is?”

“Before I begin, I join the tributes to Lance Corporal George Hooley. His tragic death reminds us of the courage of all our armed forces in their determination to protect our country. My inbox, like those of other Members, I am sure, has this week been full of correspondence from demoralised businesses, after they were …”

“I do not think we should tiptoe around this issue. The section on Europe talks of “civilisational erasure”. It says that the continent will be “unrecognizable in 20 years”. It says that they want “Europe to remain European”, and that within a few decades NATO members will be “majority non-European”. We need to recognis…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. As you probably know, south London is wonderful, but you may not know that it is one of the UK’s largest regional economies. Last week my local council, the London borough of Sutton, launched its economic growth plan, inviting businesses to take advantage of opportunities in the area. Will the Mi…”

“T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.”

“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. The Minister indicated to the House that the Liberal Democrats were against the national minimum wage in the ’90s. My own memories are hazy, but I am reliably informed that that was not the case, so I hope the Minister will correct the record.”

“So the buffer enables you to make that decision. Could I just push you on the next question: what circumstances do you feel you would need to make adjustments in a spring statement? The £22 billion definitely gives you more buffer room, but is an erosion of £5 billion, £10 billion or £15 billion too much? At what point…”

“You have given yourself more headroom—I understand that. Then you said that you are not going to take any action to—”

“I think that was clear last spring, but to move on to—”

“Can I ask my next question, and then you can come back on that?”

“Chancellor, you spoke about your decision in this Budget to increase your headroom to around £22 billion. We had a discussion about headroom in the spring statement, where you said to me that, “everyone would like more headroom, but no one wants more taxes and no one wants lower spending. I think we have the balance ab…”

“I know it seems esoteric, but we have had reports coming out saying that the inflated debt costs to the UK are worth about £7 billion a year. We have all reflected on the speculation that has gone on around this Budget for the last six months in terms of tax measures and policy uncertainty perhaps putting off investmen…”

“I asked these exact questions in the spring, because you had to do a fiscal repair job in the spring, obviously. Trump’s election had already taken place at that time. You had already lost the headroom between autumn and the spring, so I think it is fair to say that many people thought that the headroom was already low…”

“To follow on from that question about the squeezed middle, some analysis has been done since the Budget about the impact on the 1% or even the 0.1%, and people claim that if you look at those categories, it is not as distributive as the Treasury’s graphs present. Mr Bowler, do you do any distributional analysis in rega…”

“Chancellor, do you recognise the analysis that is out there? There is obviously increasing scrutiny about the top 1% and the top 0.1%, particularly as those on middle to higher incomes are starting to feel the pinch. Do you think it would be a good idea for the Treasury to start modelling that as well, so you can get a…”

“Chancellor, you mentioned wanting to fix some of the tax reliefs so that they operate as intended. You will be aware that there are over 1,200 on the books and only around 300 of them have ever been properly evaluated for their cost and effectiveness. I presented the Tax Reliefs (Evaluation) Bill, which would commit th…”

“Would you give it a try and look into that in future?”

“I would like to move on to the decision to move towards one formal assessment by the OBR. Again, back in the spring you said, “Some people were saying, ‘Don’t worry about the headroom. You can address it in the autumn.’ I felt that that would be the wrong decision, because we have been very clear in our manifesto and o…”

“I will just press you: will you commit to looking at them all? There are only 300 out of 1,200—”

“May I ask you about one small thing that happened after the Budget, which is the US-UK trade deal on drugs, which apparently will cost an extra £3 billion per year? There has been a lot of worry among NHS leaders about where that money is going to come from. Will it come from within the existing Department of Health an…”