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Lord Livermore (Lab)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 29 April 2025

Debate

Tax: Changes

Contribution

No is the answer. The noble Baroness says that taxes should rise or spending should be cut. I ask her the same question: she says repeatedly that we are raising the wrong taxes, but she never says which taxes we should be raising. She says repeatedly that we should cut spending, but she never says what we should cut spending on. The OBR’s March forecast shows that the Government meet our fiscal rules with the same headroom as at the time of the Budget, thanks to decisive action to reduce spending and to grow the economy. Average borrowing over the next five years will be 2.6% of GDP, compared with 5.6% of GDP over the previous 14 years. There is now a significant fiscal consolidation during the course of this Parliament, taking borrowing as a share of GDP from 4.5% to 2.1%, achieving the biggest current budget surplus in over 20 years.

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