Charlie Maynard

I thank the Chancellor and the Minister for their speech and statement. We know that the Conservatives’ Brexit deal has hit national GDP by as much as 8%, costing the country up to £90 billion a year in lost tax revenues. Will the Government now pull the largest zero-cost growth lever available to them by negotiating a growth and defence partnership with the EU, including joining the single market and a new customs union, rather than clinging to the same failed red lines, which are costing businesses billions every year? Being outside the single market and the customs union directly links to the 13% fall in the UK’s export of goods since 2022, which has hit traditional manufacturing regions the worst—the same places that the Government’s reindustrialise-the-north agenda claims to prioritise. I would like to understand whether she acknowledges the reality of that linkage or not. I welcome the Chancellor’s emphasis on the importance of fiscal credibility and, linked to that, meeting the fiscal rules. However, the reality is that those rules have been easily gamed by successive Governments, with our budgetary process being summarised as speculation without scrutiny, short-term headroom chasing and gaming the system, with an approach of jam today, which is spending, and pain tomorrow, which is tax, but tomorrow never arrives. The result is that it has been more than 25 years since we had a balanced Budget, and our national debt is now six times larger than 20 years ago. Will the Chief Secretary demonstrate that she is serious about tackling our debt and agree that a key way to do that is to grow our economy? Will she consider what we can learn from how other countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and New Zealand have addressed and solved their budget process problems?