Speeches by Reeves.

“We have got to grow the economy, and that is the No. 1 mission of this Government, but it has got to be felt in the pockets of ordinary people in Worthing, in Hackney, in Leeds West and Pudsey—in all parts of the country. That means more good jobs, paying decent wages, that you can afford to raise a family on. That is …”

“Thank you very much for that story. I think all of us will have in our mind somebody we have met. I remember meeting a woman a long way from my constituency, down on the south coast in Worthing. Between her and her husband they had five or six jobs; they had a young child and lived in private rented accommodation. The …”

“It is absolutely part of the strategy. It is a partnership approach between Government and business. There are some things that business cannot do. Businesses do not fund the basic R&D. They do not fund the universities, the skills or the health service, which makes sure we have a healthy workforce.”

“With respect, Mr Glen, we saw the number of people not in education, employment or training under the last Conservative Government increase by more than 100,000. That was not because of greater protections at work and increases in people’s wages; in fact, living standards went backwards in the last Parliament. I just d…”

“There are more people in employment now than there were when Labour came into office. Partly, that reflects a reduction in the inactivity rate. I think there have only been three years in the last 50 years where the employment rate has been higher than it is today. It is, of course, welcome that people are putting them…”

“I don’t believe in a trickle-down economic theory of growth, where you make better-off people a bit better off and eventually that affects the ordinary person in your Basingstoke constituency or my Leeds West and Pudsey constituency. I believe that growth comes from the bottom up, and the middle out, and that if workin…”

“It is not just pump-priming; it is providing some of those basic services, but also things like Northern Powerhouse Rail or the Ox-Cam corridor. There is a role for Government in making sure the infrastructure is in place to connect people and jobs, to build the housing and to make sure you have the reservoirs and the …”

“It was not my job to work out the funding need; the policy is for the Department for Education to work through. But we made a decision as a Government to fund that fully, based on the money that the Department for Education felt was needed to fully fund it. What I would say to parents is that this has been widely consu…”

“I will say it then. [Laughter.] We have to design the scheme and make sure it functions properly.”

“If you look at the OBR forecast and the things the OBR have taken into account, they have taken into account, for example, our increase in capital spending. As I say, that will have a positive impact on the size of the economy. The OBR have also taken into account some of our planning reforms and are saying that they h…”

“I wouldn’t say that they are medium-term measures, because they are things that are coming in this year. Let me address employment, and then energy. The youth guarantee scheme that I announced in the Budget last year comes in in the next couple of months, and that includes the job guarantee for young people who have be…”

“Apart from it gives people greater security. If you know that you will get sick pay from day one, that means you have a bit more confidence to spend the money—”

“Last year we were the fastest growing European country in the G7, and that is also forecast to be the case this year; but the truth is that growth, both here and around the world, especially in the advanced economies, is not as strong as we would like it to be, which is why I have always said that growth is the No. 1 m…”

“I think you have to look at these things in the round, because if you are a worker on a zero-hours contract and you do not know next week how many hours you are going to get, it is very difficult to be able to plan anything for the future, and it is very difficult to spend money because you have to build up precautiona…”

“Are you referring particularly to non-doms?”

“As I have already confirmed, we are looking at all eventualities, but the root cause of this is the challenge in getting oil and gas out of the middle east, so the best way to deal with this is to address that at the root.”

“I think you have to take into account the impact that it will have on employees as consumers. If you have got more money in your pocket, that is more money to spend on your local high street and in your local business. This argument played out when the last Labour Government introduced the national minimum wage in the …”

“No, but maybe I will let Dharmesh come in.”

“We took a number of measures, particularly in the first Budget, but also in the second Budget, to ensure that those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share of tax. We have got rid of the non-dom tax status entirely. We increased the rate of capital gains tax. We got rid of the loophole whereby private equity b…”

“We have provided allocations for every Government Department. Obviously, every Department would like to have a bigger budget, but that would require higher taxes, which we—”