Speeches by Stride.

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we borrow more money, we pay more for that borrowing. Of course, that has fed through to inflation. We know that inflation this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, will be the highest in the G7. The IMF also says it will be the highest in the G7 next year. The cons…”

“I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman has given me an opportunity to correct the record, because I know this has been spun by the Labour party. At a fringe meeting at the Conservative party conference, there was a long, extended debate about just how bad things are, with speculations about all the “what ifs” and “maybes…”

“I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised my tenure at the Department for Work and Pensions, when I was the Secretary of State. I was very clear that we needed to arrest the rising welfare bill, and—”

“My right hon. Friend makes an extremely incisive and correct point. If a Government spend huge amounts of money, there is an opportunity cost to that and it comes through in various forms, including, as he rightly says, raising the cost of capital and crowding out labour, skills and so on. It is a fine and important ba…”

“I agree. Of course, higher taxes are bearing down on living standards, but so is inflation. We have the highest level of inflation in the G7 and are forecast to have the highest in the G7 next year, too. Within that sits food inflation, which is running way above the headline rate of inflation. Who does that impact the…”

“We did, actually. We did arrest it. We made changes to the work capability assessment, which the OBR scored at £5 billion-worth of savings. The OBR also scored the fact that there would be 450,000—almost half a million—fewer people going on to those benefits as a consequence. We had already started a consultation on pe…”

“There were many great things that the previous Government did, not least creating employment as a job-making machine and, despite the Russia-Ukraine war, bringing inflation down at the back end of 2022 from 11% to 2%—bang on target—on the day of the general election. Where is inflation now? It is almost twice that leve…”

“My right hon. Friend is entirely right. The conclusion that one must draw on the mess that this Government have made of our economy is that it has become brittle, fragile and vulnerable to the kind of external shocks that it was able to withstand when the Conservatives were stewards of it. While per capita growth is al…”

“To be fair, I think the Prime Minister was referring to facial hair growth, rather than growth in the economy. They are distinctly different things.”

“Well, he may or may not be—it remains to be seen. What all this ends up with, of course, is lost fiscal headroom. That is the story so far. We had a Budget last October with about £10 billion against the debt target; that vanishes, with 50% on top as well. It is rebuilt in the spring, and now it has all disappeared, an…”

“I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman would follow up what was not the strongest first question with that. The Government are naive enough to think that by simply buying people off with no strings attached, the problem would go away. It is like feeding meat to the wolf: when the wolf is fed meat, it will come back to …”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will have heard the various quotations at the beginning of my contribution exactly to that effect. The motion on the Order Paper asks a simple question. It is essentially this: even at this late stage, will the Government stand by their word, or will they dragoon those on the Benc…”

“If the hon. Gentleman looks at absolute poverty after housing costs, he will find very significant reductions for children, pensioners and across the piece during the vast majority of our time in office.”

“The hon. Gentleman’s question identifies the core of the fallacy of his Government’s approach, which is to assume that getting better outputs is all about spending ever more money. It is not. It is about what you do with that money; it is about productivity. One of the Government’s many mistakes when they came to offic…”

“Madam Deputy Speaker, that is a great shame. The hon. Gentleman has not been here for any of the debate, but that does not mean that he might not have given the best possible intervention from the Labour Benches so far. Perhaps he may like to come in a little later. We have a Government who are engaged in serial breach…”

“I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to control public expenditure in order to keep the promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Confederation of British Industry conference on 25 November 2024 that, after the last Budget, the Government would not raise taxes; and further calls on the Go…”

“It was the Korean war—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is the Chancellor’s choices that have led to this situation. She was the person who chose to put up taxes on jobs, which has led to growth being anaemic. We know that taxes such as national insurance feed through to lower investment, higher inflation, h…”

“My hon. Friend absolutely gets to the core of it. This is an extraordinary point to have arrived at, but this Government, despite their majority, do not have the plan, political will or, seemingly, even the ability now to command enough support on their own Benches to push through vital spending controls that would all…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have already set out the estimate from the OBR that a 1% increase in stamp duty means a 5% to 7% reduction in transactions. It is a horrendous and terrible tax, and it remains to be seen whether Labour Members choose to defend it.”

“I beg to move, That this House calls on the Government to reduce public expenditure to fund the abolition of stamp duty land tax on primary residences purchased by UK residents, in order to get Britain working, to grow the economy and to give people a stronger stake in their communities through the security of home own…”