Speeches by Murphy.

“What do you make of the redistributive nature of the budget? Was it redistributive?”

“Ms Curtice, was the abolition of the two-child limit the most effective way to reduce child poverty, both in terms of impact and value for money?”

“Was it the most well targeted for those in the worst deprivation? I know that it pushes the greatest number over the 60% threshold, but was it the best means of helping those who are the very most deprived?”

“Ms Curtice, you have segued nicely into my questions on living standards. Could you set out what you make of the performance on living standards in this Parliament to date compared with the previous Parliament?”

“What do you make of the measures in the Budget on the cost of living and living standards overall? Is there anything you would particularly highlight? Could you break it down a bit in terms of the next year, the next couple of years and then maybe the rest of the Parliament?”

“I echo fellow members of the Treasury Committee in commending Richard Hughes for his work and for taking responsibility for what the OBR itself acknowledged is the worst failure in its 15-year history. The shadow Chancellor failed to mention that Professor Miles stated in his testimony to the Committee yesterday that t…”

“So there are significant risks around the figure?”

“You predict a reduction in EV car sales of nearly 450,000 as a result of the measure, which is offset by other Government policies to increase sales. Could that reduction in sales be bigger than envisaged? How confident are you around the modelling of the impact of the policy change?”

“Would your expectation be that the charge will have to increase in the future to fill that gap, and potentially be extended to vans and lorries?”

“There were new taxes to electric vehicles applied in the Budget. Could you set out what the scope of this tax is to plug the fiscal gap created by reduction in fuel duty revenue?”

“Do you have the necessary data to make that assessment?”

“May I quickly turn to migration data? The latest data is much lower than you forecast. What are the fiscal implications of that?”

“Including housing costs? Why would those be included? Is it not a measure that excludes housing costs?”

“Maybe we could follow up on that point.”

“Is RHDI the most accurate measure of living standards? I ask because it includes imputed rents and it is gross of housing costs. Would a measure net of housing costs not be more accurate?”

“My constituents will welcome the action on the cost of living in the Budget, from the rail freezes to the cuts to energy bills, but could you set out the trajectory for real household disposable incomes over the Parliament? How does it change compared with your forecast in March, and what is the main reason for that ch…”

“I appreciate that you only assess the policies that the Government put in front of you, but to ask the question slightly differently: do you have a typology of policy measures that shows how you assess different types of policies in-house?”

“Say that fuel duty was not uprated: does that potentially have an impact on demand for EVs, and do you model that?”

“Is that something that you publish?”

“On fuel duty, the Budget states that from April 2027 the Government will uprate fuel duty by RPI. But as we know, fuel duty rates have been frozen for 15 years. How much headroom would the Government lose if they did not go ahead with uprating fuel duty by RPI?”