Speeches by Reeves.

“Covid fraud and error under the previous Government’s mismanagement cost the taxpayer £10.9 billion. They played fast and loose with the public purse and left the front doors wide open to fraud. That is why I have appointed a covid corruption commissioner to carry out the independent review. This Government are doing e…”

“I could not agree more. The previous Government failed to protect public money, while this Government have generated around £400 million by getting money back. We all know what happened: the Tories dished out contracts to their friends and donors—money that never belonged to them. This Government will leave no stone un…”

“No.”

“In its spring statement, the OBR was clear that productivity was coming in lower than forecast, and it was clear that it was reviewing that over the summer. The numbers that the OBR has since published showed that in the final pre-measures forecast the fiscal headroom was just over £4 billion. I was clear in my speech …”

“Employment is up since we took office, and part of the reason for the disparity between those numbers is the fact that people who were economically inactive are now seeking work. That is exactly what we want, for people to be seeking work and to get back into work, but there are more jobs in the economy today than when…”

“My hon. Friend will know that when I was at secondary school, my school library was turned into a classroom because there were more students than there was space. We have put £10 million into primary schools to get a library in every single primary school in this Parliament, and next year, to celebrate the national yea…”

“I have huge respect for the Office for Budget Responsibility, and I reappointed Richard Hughes for a second term earlier this year. We deeply regret the publication of the Budget document ahead of the Budget. Richard Hughes has apologised for that and has resigned, but I thanked him for his leadership of the OBR. My ho…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for this question and for all the campaigning work she has done on it. Removing the two-child limit, combined with the changes we are making around free school meals, the warm home discount, capping the cost of school uniform and rolling out more childcare to more families, will lift more familie…”

“I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We are backing building and getting Britain building with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which passed yesterday—I think without the support of Conservative Members, but frankly, we do not need them. We are backing our automotive sector with changes to employee car owners…”

“As the right hon. Gentleman knows, we are backing Grangemouth and have put money into the Acorn carbon capture and storage project. We are taking £150 off people’s energy bills in Scotland. In England and Wales, NHS waiting lists are falling. I wonder why they are still increasing in Scotland.”

“I hosted an event last night for entrepreneurs. Speaking at it were the chief executives of Quantexa and Motorway, both of whom welcomed the changes that we made to support entrepreneurs at the Budget, particularly the changes we made around enterprise management incentives, the enterprise investment scheme, VCT, and t…”

“It is my understanding that the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” was released on its website before this statement. This is deeply disappointing and a serious error on its part. It has already made a statement taking full responsibility for its breach. We are rebuilding our economy. Over…”

“I am happy for them to shout as much as they like, Madam Deputy Speaker, as long as they do it from the Opposition Benches, where they cannot cause any more damage. I said that there would be no return to austerity, and I meant it. This Budget will maintain investment in our economy and in our national health service. …”

“We beat the forecasts this year, and we will beat them again by boosting trade, not blocking it; by increasing investment, not cutting it; by championing innovation, not stifling it; and by backing working people, not making them poorer. Brick by brick, we have been building our economy—building roads, building homes, …”

“The Tories do not want to hear what they did to schools like mine, but I will tell them. Textbooks were rationed, libraries closed and kids herded into portacabins in the playground. I came into politics to change that. The money that I allocated at the spending review will fix the crumbling classrooms that the Conserv…”

“I would not want any hon. Member to miss this. We are chasing down that money and have almost £400 million back from dodgy pandemic spending and contracts. Tory contracts handed out by Tory Ministers to Tory peers and Tory donors. That money belongs in our schools and in our hospitals, and we are getting it back. Final…”

“Under the Conservatives, the cost of our welfare system increased by nearly 1 percentage point of GDP—equivalent to £88 billion in just five years. The broken welfare system that we inherited wrote off millions of people as too sick to work. We will reform that system, so that it is a system that does not count the cos…”

“The Leader of the Opposition supported these freezes when her party made them; she might want to forget about that, but the British people never will. At the same time, we are ensuring that people only in receipt of the basic or new state pension do not have to pay small amounts of tax through simple assessment from Ap…”

“I think our constituents have heard all they need to from Conservative Members today. We on the Labour Benches do not believe that the solution to a broken welfare system is to punish the most vulnerable. We are lifting 450,000 children out of poverty with the end of the two-child limit. Combined with other actions tha…”

“Those are my choices, not austerity and not reckless borrowing, but cutting the debt, cutting waiting lists and cutting the cost of living. Those are Labour choices, promised and delivered by this Budget—promised and delivered by this Labour Government. I commend this statement to the House. Provisional collection of t…”