Speeches by Dean.

“It was within £2 million—”

“That really is hard to believe.”

“Chancellor, you have spoken about your commitment to the fiscal rules, and we have spoken about the stability rule in particular. The stability rule obviously does not specify how much surplus you should have. Yesterday, Dr Saleheen told us that the markets are not looking for that either, but it seems like a decision …”

“I think the bit we are trying to get clarity on is this: the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions addressed the House on 18 March, so changes went into the package on 19 March. Was that when the variance between what she said at the Dispatch Box and what we saw in the spring statement came in?”

“I guess my question is whether it is important to you to have two forecasts a year. If it is really important to you to have one fiscal event a year, is it important to still have two forecasts? Obviously, it restrains you in those moments if you are committed to having a fiscal event only once a year.”

“The OBR produce two forecasts a year, but you are committed to one fiscal event a year, which I think you define as making adjustments to tax. Given that the forecasts are instrumental in determining your headroom and that you are going to want to be responsive to that to make sure you maintain your fiscal rules, do yo…”

“Are you quite confident, then, that everybody who ends up dropping out of the eligibility criteria has the potential to work and that you will be able to get them into work?”

“I guess part of what I am driving at is striving towards a specific number, such as the extra £500 million that is going into the welfare reforms as a result. That could have a real-world impact on thousands of people, and it seems to me that we are chasing this number because it is written down, as opposed to making p…”

“That has answered my point well, because obviously the Government are saying that the driving purpose of these reforms is to get people back into work, but from what you are saying, it sounds like you do not think that a huge proportion of the people who look like they may lose out, particularly in relation to PIP paym…”

“I do not know whether you want to come in on that point, Mr Johnson. The OBR would not be drawn on the potential impacts on employment, because they did not have enough detail to date. Would you be able to estimate—or give a ballpark region—what kind of proportion of people returning to work we might be talking about, …”

“I just thought it was important that we addressed the point about the proportion of people due to fall into poverty according to the DWP analysis, because that has been subject to much conversation in the last few days. The DWP says that 250,000 people will fall into poverty, including 50,000 children, as a result of t…”

“Just reading between the lines, the Government’s expectation is that the figure will be dragged down by their employment initiatives, but you are saying that there are actually risks that it could go up, because it does not take into account all the changes that have been proposed.”

“Thank you.”

“So a bit of variance probably would not have been judged that poorly. Isn’t the danger that because the Government have chosen to match this figure, it becomes a new anchoring figure? Rather than having the actual headroom, the new headroom that you have to meet is within £9 billion. Do you think the markets may pay mo…”

“I want to move on to the welfare reforms in a bit more detail. There is widespread acknowledgment that the welfare reforms could result in better outcomes. If more people who are currently out of work, or who are disabled and struggling to find work, get into work, that would be a good thing both for those people and f…”

“Do you think this measure within 1% of overall spending is useful for everybody to focus on? Should there be more flexibility in that? You can gain flexibility by having greater headroom, as you said earlier, and traditionally there used to be much greater headroom in these forecasts. You could also do that through a c…”

“A birthday only you would know.”

“I am sure we will ask. If we are striving towards a similar figure, does that not de facto change the fiscal rules? We are not just seeking a £9 billion surplus. Do you expect to see the same thing happen in the autumn?”

“Mr Hughes, I would like to go back to the fiscal headroom question. I think the thing that struck everybody was the restoration to precisely the same figure we had before, so it doesn’t really look like an actual output of policy reforms that have been scored—it feels like that figure was targeted. Is that the case? Di…”

“It is good that we are trying to measure it more accurately, but it does make us different from others and adds to the question mark over whether Britain has a unique productivity problem compared with others. Is this real, or is this measurement? Do you have any sense of that?”