Tim Roca

If the hon. Lady wants to have an argument with Churchill, she may do so, but I will not join her. I believe he was a great man. Why should the Government spend billions helping those who are already wealthy? Why should families inheriting millions take priority over families struggling with bills? That is the choice at the heart of this motion: invest in services and support people who rely on them or hand a huge tax break to a small minority and leave everyone else to bear the cost. The Conservatives’ record makes their claims of fiscal responsibility even harder to take seriously. Between 2010 and 2019 the national debt increased from £1 trillion to £1.8 trillion. That was before covid and the war in Ukraine. Debt to GDP increased from 69% to 84%. As Members have pointed out, we then got treated to the Liz Truss magic of a disastrous experiment in unfunded tax cuts that sent markets into turmoil and damaged confidence in the UK. Then before the 2024 election we had many other promises of tax cuts worth billions that did not have any credible funding plans set behind them. Here they are again with another enormous tax giveaway but unable to tell us precisely which public services would pay the price. They have not learned the lessons of their failure; they just found new ways to replicate them. The public finances are not a bottomless pit that politicians can dip into whenever they fancy announcing a tax cut. Every promise has to be funded properly, because it has consequences for real people. The Conservatives spent years telling people that there was no alternative to difficult decisions, yet when it comes to their own priorities, they make the promise and leave somebody else to deal with the bill. That is not fiscal responsibility; it is fiscal incontinence. Their priorities are clear when we look at the two-child limit. The Conservatives indicated that they would reinstate a policy that would push 500,000 children back into poverty. At the same time, they want to direct a substantial tax benefit towards a tiny number of wealthy estates. The contrast is clear: they tell families on low incomes that the country cannot afford to help them, but they propose billions in tax cuts for the very wealthy. That is a choice, and it tells us who they put first in our society.