Speeches by Stride.

“Given the rapidly rising cost of oil and gas, why does the right hon. Lady believe that it is better to import it than to extract it from the North sea?”

“For every single year of the last Conservative Government, we froze fuel duty, and we did so to stand up for hard-working families. Given that petrol prices are surging at the pumps, why has the right hon. Lady chosen now to put up fuel duty?”

“I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement and add the Opposition’s firm support for our armed forces. As the Chancellor has made clear, these are very serious and concerning times, and developments in the middle east are already having profound consequences for our economy. Oil prices have surged above …”

“Is that it? What utter complacency—a Chancellor in denial. She speaks of stability, but what planet is she on? She has lurched from putting up taxes to destroying growth and headroom, and then to coming back and putting up more taxes, with more growth destroyed. Round and round we go, like a fiscal twister, ripping up …”

“No, they do not like it, Mr Speaker; they do not like the truth. This is not a spring statement. It is a surrender statement. The Chancellor has the temerity to suggest that she is creating the conditions for renewed growth. She is rather like a dodgy estate agent standing in a crumbling building with the roof gone, th…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker. The right hon. Lady says the cost of borrowing is coming down, but does she not know that the cost of borrowing in this country has been the highest in the G7 —[Interruption.]”

“Our borrowing is even higher than Greece’s. Indeed, if debt were a Department, it would be the third largest spending Department in Whitehall. That is money not going on the people’s priorities, but simply being flushed down the drain. The right hon. Lady puts great store in the latest forecasts on debt and says that i…”

“Thank you, Mr Speaker; they just do not like the truth—that is the truth of it. As our economy bleeds out, what does the right hon. Lady do? She comes to this House with nothing to say and with no plan—unless, of course, doing nothing is a cunning plan to avoid those U-turns further down the line. She is weak. She has …”

“Mr Speaker, I think the mood of the House is that 10 minutes from the hon. Gentleman is more than enough, although I am grateful to him for having given me advance sight of his statement.”

“Last orders.”

“That is much appreciated, Mr Speaker. Mr Speaker, was that it? After all this time, and weeks of telling our local pubs that help was on the way, this is all they get—a temporary sticking plaster that will only delay the pain for a few, while thousands of businesses despair as their bills skyrocket. The Labour party ma…”

“Mr Speaker, I begin by associating Conservative Members with the Chancellor’s comments about your leg—we wish it well. We are waiting with interest to hear the details of the latest U-turn on business rates this afternoon, but if the briefing is to be believed, it will be far too little, too late. The Chancellor simply…”

“They just do not get it. Of course, it is not just pubs; the whole high street—shops, restaurants and hotels—is seeing massive increases in business rates, some well over 100%. Where is the help for those businesses?”

“That was a complete non-response. The Minister says he will make a statement in future in the usual way; we can only assume that that will be via the media, not this House. Of all the excuses for a U-turn that we have heard from the Government, this one beggars belief. The Minister expects us to accept that the Governm…”

“(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the planned changes to business rates for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.”

“I will give way to the hon. Gentleman and then I will come to the hon. Lady.”

“I notice that my right hon. Friend is being restrained in his use of language, given the severity of the matters we are discussing. He is absolutely right. Business property relief is being changed in broadly the same way as agricultural property relief in this Bill. That will have a devastating and similar consequence…”

“My hon. Friend is right to suggest that we have become an economy that has closed the door on international investment. In fact, the door has been blown wide open by those fleeing to go to the United Arab Emirates, Milan and other places around the world to escape the high-tax jurisdiction that we have become, and it c…”

“It is interesting that the hon. Lady should raise the issue of inflation. Inflation is currently at about twice the target of 2%, and it was bang on target on the day of the general election, at 2%, because of the action that we took, alongside the Bank of England. The International Monetary Fund is forecasting that in…”

“As I have to say so often following his interventions, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There is a huge difference between the position of a dynamic, growing organism of a company and the other situation that he has described. Loading up these taxes on the death of the principal owner or one of the significant o…”