Dan Tomlinson

I thank hon. Members from both sides of the House for their contributions throughout the debate. Some of them definitely had the volume to enable all of us in the House to hear them. I thank the right hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle (Victoria Atkins), who is herself a former Treasury Minister, for her contributions. Given her experience, having spent some time working in the Treasury, we may have expected at least a hint of self-awareness from Opposition Front-Bench Members. The previous Government left Britain with crumbling public services, broken public finances and the worst Parliament on record for living standards. Today, the Conservatives have come to the House demanding more unfunded tax cuts, worth up to £11 billion a year, without any clear plan whatsoever for how they would pay for them other than a vague commitment in the motion to cutting public spending. We all know what that means: it means cutting spending on the NHS, cutting spending on our schools and cutting spending on our police. That is what they did when they had 14 years in charge. We know that if they ever get on to the Government Benches again, their first port of call will be taking away money from our public services, which constituents up and down the country rely on. The Conservatives’ plans would do nothing to help ordinary families with the cost of living and would benefit the very wealthiest estates. I do not think it is the right priority to give a £3.74 million tax cut to someone living in a £10 million mansion, but it is clear that their priority is to give massive tax cuts to people in £10 million homes. We will not take that decision on the Labour side of the House. Over and again, the Conservative party sets out fantasy spending cuts that nobody believes it will deliver, and which clearly demonstrate its inability to add up or even to watch what the Government are doing. For example, some Opposition Members talked about changes to welfare spending and how the Conservatives plan to bring back face-to-face assessments. Yes, that would be a very good idea, and that is why the Government are doing that after Conservative Members scrapped face-to-face assessments during the pandemic and did not get round to reinstating them. We are bringing them back to ensure that we can move people off welfare and into work, because that is a Labour value and we support work. In stark contrast to the Conservative party, it is because of the action that the Government have taken since coming to office that our economy is demonstrating strong resilience in the face of global challenges. Earlier this week, the IMF upgraded our forecast of growth for this year. We were the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first half of the year. The IMF has also projected that we will have the lowest deficit in the G7 by 2031, and we are on track to cut the deficit by more than any other G7 economy between 2025 and 2030. From 2029, we will have the lowest borrowing in the G7.