Speeches by Reeves.

“The OBR is clear about some of the reasons for the productivity downgrade, as I said to Mr Murphy—the Brexit deal, the pandemic and the decisions of the previous Government. The plans I inherited from the previous Government would have seen capital spending as a share of GDP fall from, I think, 2.5% to 1.9%. We have ma…”

“I am not surprised you do not want to hear about the previous Government. Nor do voters. There we are: a rare moment of agreement.”

“I think it is best if Chancellors do not get into commenting on the bond markets. I will say that we were very focused on those issues when we put together the Budget package, both on increasing the fiscal headroom—which goes from £9.9 billion to £21.7 billion—and on fiscal consolidation. I recognise that that fiscal c…”

“Yes, we have regular meetings with the growth mission board. I did not say in my answer to your question, as you suggested, that there were no growth measures in this Budget. Far from it. In the week of the Budget, we made further progress on the runway at Heathrow; we signed off the film studio in Marlow. Jamie Dimon,…”

“Of course, the previous Government took taxes to a record high and saw interest rates go through the roof.”

“We are already embarking on the biggest uplift in defence spending since the end of the cold war, taking it to 2.6% by April 2027. Although every Department apart from the NHS and Defence has had to make some further efficiency savings towards the end of the Parliament, that is not the case—well, they have to make effi…”

“Good try. I think the OBR are sticking to their number of around a 4% hit, but it is still very material. That is why we have this reset with the EU and why we are at the moment negotiating around a new food and farming agreement, energy trading, electricity trading, Erasmus and a new youth mobility scheme—because we r…”

“You can see the direction of travel, though. We have made permanent the full expensing and, this year, for things that are not covered by full expensing, we are introducing a more generous first-year allowance. If you are asking us, “Is there more to do on this?”, yes, I think there is in a range of areas, like the one…”

“Not at all. The £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government, which we had to fill, was set out to me by Treasury officials on the weekend that I became Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then there was the £16 billion downgrade to productivity and the impact that that had on fiscal revenue. The Office for Budget R…”

“That was part of the agreement in the spending review, that for this spending review period, that would be absorbed. The costs are actually quite low in the first couple of years, and that was part of the spending review settlement. But obviously, at future spending reviews—”

“Shall I finish answering your question, Dame Harriett? You have asked about economic growth. You will know that in the spring, the OBR upgraded their growth forecast. It was the biggest upgrade to growth from a non-fiscal measure that the OBR, in its 15-year history now, has ever made. That reflected the changes we mad…”

“Yes, but the Bank of England does—the MPC and the Bank of England are a little bit different.”

“Obviously, everything in the next spending review will be set out in the next spending review.”

“That is exactly—no, no, no. That is not what I said. Sorry, Dame Harriett—”

“First of all—we have been through this a number of times—there was new information after the general election: first, the £22 billion black hole in the public finances left by the previous Government.”

“I believe in the numbers that I set out in my Budget. A lot of people had views of what I was going to do in my Budget and whether I would be able to live within the means set in my Budgets, but we have consistently done that, and we have increased the headroom. We also set out, just before the summer recess, our spend…”

“Nothing if not predictable.”

“I think the question that Mr Glen was putting to me was whether increasing rates versus freezing would be much different. I would say that £70,000 is around twice the national average wage.”

“Well, they are not paying the same, are they?”

“I hope that you see, in this Budget and last year’s Budget, that, due primarily to the work of the former Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury—who is now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury—and the new Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, we have done some really good work on cracking down on tax avoidance and closing l…”