Speeches by Grady.

“Another suggestion that people make, Chancellor, is that we should increase borrowing. In your view, would a material increase in borrowing and the change in your fiscal rules that would have to take place lead to a significant increase in the cost of Government borrowing?”

“Do you have any thoughts on more fundamental reform, or is that for another day?”

“Another tax suggestion that people make is on council tax revaluation or additional bands. We see that from the IFS and others. What is the current Treasury thinking on that?”

“Another lever that is suggested is tax. The first suggestion is a wealth tax, which would take time and would be complicated to implement. What are the Treasury’s thoughts on a wealth tax at the minute?”

“So if we were out in Bramley or in Broomhouse in my seat, what you would say is that higher mortgage rates for people, the higher cost of finance for big investments in energy infrastructure and so on, and lower economic growth are what would eventuate from greater borrowing.”

“Good afternoon, Chancellor. If you look at chart 7.2 on page 144 of the OBR’s report, obviously there is a missing Chancellor of the Exchequer there, in the form of Kwasi Kwarteng—”

“Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 2 April.”

“This week, the full state pension will rise by £472 a year, putting money in the pockets of pensioners in Glasgow and across the United Kingdom. Does the Prime Minister agree that this rise is possible only because of Labour’s plan for change and our commitment to the triple lock?”

“If I have this right, Government borrowing costs increasing to, for example, 5% or 5.5% would feed through to the public finances quite significantly, because we have a large amount of debt—almost 100% of GDP, so we are quite unlike Germany. Additionally, however, because of the way in which people price private sector…”

“I want to come back to the confidence in sticking to fiscal rules. Richard Hughes of the OBR made an interesting comment last week: “This Spring Statement breaks a historical pattern of asymmetric policy responses to forecast changes—in which windfalls were generally spent but shortfalls were not fully made up.” Dr Sal…”

“I think you explained earlier that the outcome of that would be higher borrowing costs for the UK Government.”

“It would also mean, would it not, potentially higher mortgage rates for constituents in my seat?”

“I think it is important to put this in the real world of my constituents, Dr Saleheen: their mortgage rates would go up if the Chancellor were reckless with the public finances. Thinking about housing, we are very keen on getting more houses—I think everyone is—but the housing developers have to borrow money to build t…”

“The gilt rates going up on a sustained basis would affect the cost of capital for businesses in the UK, which would affect business investment and, potentially, jobs.”

“That is why it is important to make sure that the public finances are run well. If Government borrowing rates and interest rates went up across the economy—in a relationship between the two—that presumably would be damaging for economic growth.”

“If you were out with me and some voters in Mount Vernon in Glasgow East, a lovely part of the city—it is all brilliant—I suspect you would say to them that it is very important that the Chancellor sticks to her fiscal rules and runs the public finances responsibly, because if she does not, it could have real-world impl…”

“Coming to headroom briefly, chart 7.2 of the OBR report shows an average of headroom up to March 2022 of around £30 billion, and then it drops down from November, through Jeremy Hunt’s tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and then onwards, in October and March, to around the £9 billion to £10 billion mark.”

“We better not get into that—we will come back to that later.”

“I think we know who it is; I think he has been back in the press giving advice again, actually. Anyway, good for him. Mr Johnson, is the current headroom enough?”

“My final question is for Ms Curtice. If we decided to go hell for leather and increase this headroom as quickly as possible—Geoffrey Howe-style in 1981—that implies quite significant tax rises or spending cuts. What do you think the implications of that will be for my constituents in Glasgow East?”