Speeches by Baldwin.

“So it is £500 per year per household.”

“I can see exactly why you are approaching this, but I wondered if it was imminent, or something we will have to wait for.”

“Are we likely to see that announcement this side of the autumn Budget?”

“I totally agree.”

“It has been taking forever.”

“Chancellor, in your documents, you mentioned the fact that you are looking at ISAs. The Committee is also looking at lifetime ISAs. I wondered whether you could set out your vision and timetable for that look at ISAs to help people invest more in the growing sectors of the economy. What is your vision for getting peopl…”

“But you have increased debt.”

“Well, we can monitor the impact of that as time goes by, but could you help the Committee out with the extra £500 a year in real household disposable income that you cited? What official document is that published in?”

“Chancellor, I am genuinely interested in the decisions you have taken since you have become Chancellor. What I am not hearing, in these economic statistics since your Budget last October, is anything that has got better in terms of the economic numbers. You cited the planning reforms as a helpful supply-side measure th…”

“Only by taking away money from the international development budget.”

“But Chancellor, as you rightly say, you are following a lot of the recommendations in the IMF article IV report on the UK economy. You must acknowledge—you cannot deny the reality—that since October last year and the spring statement, growth in this economy, the confidence of businesses, the confidence of consumers, ha…”

“We are just more exposed to interest rates than we were before, aren’t we?”

“More than the rest of the world, or in line with the rest of the world?”

“Is that by year, or cumulatively?”

“Can I ask the same question of Mr Hughes: did business and consumer confidence take a bigger hit after the October Budget than you had put into your forecasts?”

“We are already hearing speculation about tax increases in the next Budget. People can see through some of these bad revisions of the forecast and recognise that it is going to be hard for the Chancellor to do more on the spending side. They recognise that unless growth actually materialises there will be difficult choi…”

“I will give Mr Josephs a chance to speak, because I am very struck by the fact that you were last in front of this Committee five months ago and since then there have been some quite big changes in terms of the economic and fiscal outlook. The headline number that got a lot of traction last week was that growth has hal…”

“This has been a genuinely important, interesting and lively debate on product regulation and metrology. It has also been a debate about the balance of power between the Executive and us here in Parliament. The UK product safety and metrology framework is derived from European Union law and it developed while the UK was…”

“Many, many compassionate people across West Worcestershire and the whole of the United Kingdom will be wanting to know what they can do to help in this situation, so will the Minister give us some further information on how UK taxpayers may donate and whether there will be an aid match?”

“Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), and knowing how much the Minister values soft power, can he reassure the House that there will be no further cuts to the British Council or the World Service in the Balkans on his watch?”