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Budget Resolutions

My right hon. Friend must be able to read my mind, because that was exactly the point I was coming on to make: in real terms, there are cuts of up to 18% in unprotected Departments, going all the way through to the end of the next Parliament. That has been described by David Gauke, the Tory ex-Treasury Minister as the height of “fiscal irresponsibility”.

The legacy of this Government is burgeoning Government debt, up from 64.7% of GDP when Labour left office in 2010 to 95% now. The Chancellor will barely meet his own self-imposed fiscal rules by the tiniest of margins. Meanwhile, his neglect means that NHS waiting lists have soared, with 7.8 million treatments outstanding, and despite publishing 11 plans for growth since 2010, the trend growth rate is down from 2.3% in the 2000s to 0.8% this year. There is no regional plan, no working industrial strategy and no sign of levelling up—regional disparities are widening, not closing—and GDP is now £400 billion less than expected from the 2010 OBR growth rate forecast. Wages have stagnated,

and the Government have delivered deepening levels of poverty, caused by low wages and real-terms benefits cuts, which have reduced the incomes of the poorest 20% and seen the number of people relying on food banks go from 60,000 to nearly 3 million. We have seen the last desperate throw of the dice from a failing, discredited Government, who have long since run out of ideas and are finally running out of road.

3.2 pm