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The Earl of Effingham (Con)

Speaking in the House of Lords on 13 February 2025

Debate

National Insurance Contributions: Hospitality Sector

Contribution

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer, but I am afraid that I have to challenge the validity of his data on what he refers to as the black hole. Please let me quote Paul Johnson, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, who said that Rachel Reeves “may be overegging the £22bn black hole”. Most crucially, please let me quote Richard Hughes, the chair of the OBR itself, who said: “Nothing in our review was a legitimisation of that” £22 billion figure. I have a simple question for the Minister: when the OBR’s chair says that nothing in its review was a legitimisation of the number that has now been repeated 59 times from His Majesty’s Government’s Benches, is the chair of the OBR wrong?

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