Speeches by Stride.

“It is a simple matter of logic that even if the hon. Lady’s assertion is true—I do not know whether it is or not—it does not contradict the point that I made.”

“My right hon. Friend, as ever, is absolutely right. The reality, as we see in the bond yields at the moment, is that the markets have no confidence in the ability of this Government to get on top of spending. We saw the farce of a Government who came into office scrapping the £5 billion of welfare savings that were alr…”

“In a moment. That in turn has seen interest rates higher for longer and the servicing costs on our national debt now running at over £100 billion a year—more than twice our defence spend. I will now give way to whoever was trying to intervene behind me.”

“I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words about the Conservative party—I am sure that they are deeply felt and very genuine. What the Deputy Prime Minister should be doing is delivering more homes. It is quite clear that the target of 1.5 million homes, which the Government claim they will deliver at the rate of 30…”

“If the right hon. Lady wants to make the rules, she should live by them. That message will go out to businesses and families up and down the country. There is no way that they can avoid the juggernaut of taxes that are coming down the track.”

“As the hon. Lady will know, interest rates are one of the key tools in monetary policy and are applied to bring down inflation. While she is right that there have been five reductions in the level of the base rate, there should have been many more. The reason is—the evidence is there—that this Government have stoked in…”

“The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. Of course, if the Government have got into a situation where they are having to scrabble around and look at property taxes, as we are debating this afternoon, than really nothing is safe from the taxman under this Government.”

“In a word, badly.”

“My point is very clear—I need to make some progress as I have been fairly generous in taking interventions—that when it comes to council tax, it is a fact that Conservative-controlled councils charge less, because their whole approach to running the council is the same as our approach to running the economy: to ensure …”

“The hon. Lady asks where we are getting our ideas from; where we are not getting them from is from academics and researchers who believe in taxing wealth and who now sit there on the Treasury Bench, or in other places where they advise No. 10. They talk on a regular basis about taxing property, wealth, shares and asset…”

“I beg to move, That this House notes recent reports that the Government is considering a wide range of increases to taxes on property; notes the Prime Minister’s commitment last year not to impose Capital Gains Tax on primary residences; and calls on the Government not to introduce an annual property levy which would t…”

“My hon. Friend has put it brilliantly and succinctly, and she is absolutely right. In their horror—in their recoil from the inheritance tax changes—that is exactly what farmers and family business owners have been doing: thinking about alternatives. The seven-year rule has been one of those alternatives, and it would b…”

“My right hon. Friend raises his point in his usual eloquent manner. That is a question for the Minister, and I hope that, when he rises to the Dispatch Box, he will rule out our concerns in their entirety. In the event that he cannot, perhaps he will choose to answer my right hon. Friend’s inquiry. Is it not the case t…”

“My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I have already shared with the House the classic example of the number of people who have left this country because of a punitive tax regime and the costs of that.”

“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. When it comes to criticising this Government, it is always confusing whether to address those on the Front Bench or on the Back Benches, because they are never quite in the same place. The big mistake that the Government made was to talk down the economy by going on about this …”

“I would be delighted to talk the hon. Gentleman through that. The preceding Labour Government left this country with a deficit of 10.1%, or £160 billion a year, so clearly we had to get on top of that deficit. It is a simple fact of economic life that if a country is running a large deficit, its debt increases, but by …”

“I think this debate is actually about the tax policy of this Government. As I have clearly set out—[Interruption.] To be fair, there was the small matter of covid, which came along and shrank the UK economy by 10% overnight. People at the time speculated that we would see mass unemployment, the like of which our countr…”

“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and under his stewardship, things were so much better. As he points out, the Government have resiled from any attempt to control the welfare bill—an unfunded tax commitment of £5 billion. That, plus the U-turn on the winter fuel payment, is more than £6 billion of unfunded comm…”

“My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. With the increasing Government debt to which this Government are constantly adding, and the higher interest rates for longer for which they are responsible because of their extravagant spending, we are spending about £100 billion a year on simply servicing that debt, which is t…”

“Indeed, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to stand up for everybody—even our toolmakers. Let us be frank: we have had to table this motion today, which seeks to do nothing other than reaffirm the commitments that the Labour party has already made, because of the litany of broken promises that I have just shar…”