Speeches by Hunt.

“Given that the Office for Budget Responsibility refused to endorse the £22 billion black hole figure—in fact, it refused to say that there was any black hole at all—will the Secretary of State tell the House what possible justification there can be for the removal of agricultural property relief, which will do untold d…”

“Can I add to the Minister’s list of beautiful villages to visit the wonderful villages of Cranleigh, Shamley Green, Peaslake, Gomshall and Bramley? They are all having big problems with 4G and 5G mobile phone reception, not least because apps need to be used to pay for parking there. Can he meet me to discuss what more…”

“I welcome the Secretary of State’s plans to reform the NHS, but may I caution against the idea that the answer is to fire more incompetent managers? The problem is not bad management: it is micromanagement from the centre that sees hospitals managed with more than 100 targets by NHS England, making ours one of the most…”

“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that for decades we have had lower business investment in the UK economy than our peers. That was why, in the autumn statement a year ago, I introduced full expensing, which was the big business tax request, to make it more attractive to invest in new factories, capital, machinery…”

“Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman ought to read the next paragraph, in which the OBR says that it is “not possible to judge” how much those pressures would have been offset by savings elsewhere, which demonstrates that they were within the range of the normal cost reductions that a Chief Secretary to the Treasury would …”

“I actually liked neither. I was the person who reversed the decisions made in the mini-Budget, but I will say this: at least Liz Truss wanted to grow the economy and said so explicitly. What we had yesterday is a Budget where the Government’s official forecaster said the impact would be lower growth, fewer jobs and low…”

“Let me tell the hon. Gentleman exactly what happened to business investment under the last Government. Since 2010, we attracted more foreign greenfield direct investment than not just anywhere in Europe, but anywhere in the world apart from the United States and China. That was foreigners voting with their dollars as t…”

“The hon. Member shakes his head, but yesterday the Chancellor said that she was going to roll that out to the whole of the public sector. I think that it is possible to do so; my concern is that doing so involves difficult decisions, and the track record of this Government is that when those decisions involve a convers…”

“I always listen to the IFS, and indeed to the Resolution Foundation, very carefully. I think that the IFS was right—[Interruption.] Let me answer the point, if I may. The IFS was right to say that it would be very challenging to hold to 1% spending assumptions, but in the Budget earlier this year I explained exactly ho…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, but there was an even more basic difference between our Budget earlier this year and this one: as a result of measures in our Budget, the growth rate went up, whereas as a result of measures in Labour’s Budget, the growth rate went down. Reducing the number of working-age pe…”

“I thank my hon. Friend—I say “my hon. Friend” because he is a great friend to us—for what he has said and I could not agree with him more. When we talk about stability, anybody who has run a business knows that the most stable businesses in the country are family businesses that are passed from generation to generation…”

“It is a pleasure to open this day of the Budget debate with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, for what will be my last contribution as shadow Chancellor. I am aware that may be a relief to Members on the Government Benches, and possibly to those on the Opposition Benches as well. Yesterday’s Budget was the bigges…”

“We all know why the Chancellor is inventing this fictitious black hole. Thirty times this year, before the election, she promised not to raise tax, and now she is planning to present the biggest tax-raising Budget in history. More consensually, however, as this is our final exchange, I welcome her announcement last wee…”

“This are indeed our final exchanges in the House, so before tomorrow’s fireworks I wish the Chancellor well for the future in her role. There has been a lot of common ground between us. For example, before the election she said that raising employers’ national insurance was a jobs tax that would take money out of peopl…”

“I think that means the answer is no. The ministerial code states: “Ministers must ensure that no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests, financial or otherwise”. That did not happen. Will the right hon. Lady tell the House why cronyism is wron…”

“When the Chancellor was sitting on the Opposition Benches she repeatedly attacked cronyism, so will she tell the House whether she told the Treasury permanent secretary that Ian Corfield had made a donation to her before she got him appointed as a director in the Treasury—yes or no?”

“The Chancellor says that the information is new, but she told the Financial Times: “You don’t need to win an election to find” out the state of public finances, as “We’ve got the OBR now.” Paul Johnson of the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said: “The state of public finances were apparent pre-election to anyone who c…”

“I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement, and I echo her thoughts for the people and emergency services of Southport. Today, she will fool absolutely no one with a shameless attempt to lay the grounds for tax rises that she did not have the courage to tell us about—[Interruption.]”

“I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because it allows me to explain why he is completely mistaken in what he is saying. We offered a set of carefully and fully funded tax cuts—unlike the £38.5 billion of unfunded spending commitments that came from the Labour party—but we always said that they wo…”

“Yes, we are minded to support the Bill, subject to having had a close look at it, because we think it is perfectly sensible. Whether it is completely necessary is a different question, but it is perfectly sensible. We have grave concerns about some elements of the King’s Speech, with a Times editorial this week describ…”