Speeches by Reeves.

“I will head to the Great Northern conference in Hull later this afternoon to speak about the impact of this Government’s policies on Yorkshire and the wider north of England. We are supporting local leaders and communities through integrated settlements, are investing in the trans-Pennine route upgrade, East West Rail …”

“I welcome the right hon. Member to his place, and look forward to many exchanges with him across the Dispatch Box. At the Budget in October, as he knows, we had to fix a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Some of that black hole comes from the fact that we are the only G7 economy in which employment is lowe…”

“As my hon. Friend will know, in the autumn Budget and phase 1 of the spending review, more than £1 billion was made available to local government, including £600 million for social care. The allocation of that money will be set out in the normal way over the next few weeks, so that local government is funded properly a…”

“At the Budget, I wiped the slate clean after 14 years of chaos and mismanagement of our public finances, and I have brought stability back to our economy, so that we can get on with fulfilling our promise of delivering change. That means investing to fix the NHS and rebuild Britain, while ensuring that working people d…”

“The hon. Gentleman talks about uncertainty, but he was a Minister in the Treasury under Liz Truss, when huge damage was done to families’ and businesses’ finances. Frankly, I will take no lessons from Conservative Members on how to run the economy. We have already done phase 1 of the spending review; phase 2 will begin…”

“At the Budget in October, we had to fill a £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government. We will never have to repeat a Budget like this one, because we will not have to clear up the mess of the previous Government ever again.”

“I am happy to arrange a meeting between my hon. Friend and the relevant Minister.”

“My hon. Friend’s constituents in Thurrock are right to be angry about the waste and corruption that happened under the previous Government. That money belongs to the British people and in our public services, not in the pockets of fraudsters taking advantage of a national emergency. Tom Hayhoe will leave no stone untur…”

“Sound management of the public finances means spending wisely and not sending money to fraudsters. Today, I have appointed the health expert Tom Hayhoe as our new covid counter-fraud commissioner. As chair of an NHS trust during the pandemic, he saw the urgency of getting personal protective equipment to NHS staff when…”

“I agree it is important that all children learn to swim, especially in our coastal communities. We had to make difficult decisions at the Budget, but I am happy to try to arrange a meeting between the hon. Gentleman and the relevant Minister to make sure the investment can go ahead at pace.”

“I didn’t know I had a choice.”

“Yes—I was just going to make a joke at my own expense, actually: the Mais lecture was the longest speech I ever gave until I delivered my Budget. On the issue around African debt and the debt crisis, as one of the largest providers of official development assistance across the G7, I do think we are playing our part in …”

“We’re not in that world, and I’m not going to speculate.”

“There are two types of capital investment that we prioritised in the Budget last week. The first part was those things where we can really crowd in private investment and look to grow our economy and exploit—seize—some of those huge opportunities. Probably the best example of that was what we have done around carbon ca…”

“Yes. There is a whole spectrum of acronyms to choose from—”

“Public sector net worth would have created even more space, but I think public sector net financial liabilities is a target that is already measured. It has been measured since 2016 by the Office for National Statistics, and it has been forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility as well since 2016. I would not qu…”

“Yes. There are a number of what we call guardrails around the investment rule—getting public sector net financial liabilities, or public sector net debt for short, down as a share of GDP. The first of those guardrails is strengthening the role of institutions to improve infrastructure delivery—which I know the Chair ha…”

“It would be naive to try and get—you started this session, Mr Glen, with uncertainties about what is happening in the global economy. I am not going to write five years’ worth of Budgets now, but we have drawn a line under the unrealistic path for public spending and the trajectory for public finances and put those on …”

“Let me start by answering your question directly about paying the bill, when there is a bill, and then I will take you through how the numbers stack up. I want to be clear that, for estates where there is going to be an inheritance tax bill, that bill can be paid over a 10-year period, interest free. That doesn’t exist…”

“Then let me come to the issue of the taxation of estates. In the last year that data was available—2021-22—the average claim for agricultural property relief was just under £500,000, and 73% of claims were for less than £1 million.”