Jeremy Hunt: Chancellor should stop ‘trash-talking’ UK economy
‘If you’re in charge of the economy, it’s time to stop trash-talking it,’ the shadow chancellor said at the House of Commons despatch box.
Jeremy Hunt has urged the Chancellor to stop “trash-talking” the economy as she axed several projects pledged under the previous Conservative government.
The Conservative shadow chancellor also accused the Labour Government of caving to trade unions after Rachel Reeves announced she would accept in full the recommendations of independent pay review bodies, which advise the Government on public sector pay rates.
He made his comments after Chancellor Ms Reeves unveiled a £22 billion black hole in Whitehall coffers.
Among the cancelled projects is a plan to build a road tunnel to re-route the A303 beneath Stonehenge in Wiltshire, and the Restoring Your Railway programme to open previously closed railway lines throughout the country.
Ms Reeves also confirmed the Government would conduct a “complete review” of the pledge for 40 new hospitals in England, and would save nearly £200 million by axing the Advanced British Standard – a proposed new qualification which would merge parts of A-levels and T-levels into a single qualification.
At the despatch box, Mr Hunt said raising public sector pay is discretionary, “in other words, not something she has to do, but something where she has a choice”.
He added: “Was she advised by officials to ask unions to ask for productivity enhancements before accepting above-inflation pay awards to help pay for those awards as the last government did?
“And if she was advised to do that, why did she reject that advice and simply tell the unions, ‘Here’s the money, thanks for your support’?”
Mr Hunt later told MPs: “She’s caved in to the unions on pay, left welfare reform out of the King’s Speech, soft-pedalled on our productivity programme, and that is a choice, not a necessity.
“That choice means that taxes will have to go up and she chose not to tell us before the election.
“Instead, in 24 days – just 24 days – she’s announced £7.3 billion for GB Energy, £8.3 billion for the National Wealth Fund, and around £10 billion for public sector pay awards.
“That’s £24 billion in 24 days – around £1 billion for every day she’s been in office, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab for her profligacy.”
On growth, Mr Hunt said: “If you’re in charge of the economy, it’s time to stop trash-talking it.
“What’s the point of going to New York or Brazil to bang the drum for more investment if you come home with a cock-and-bull story about how bad everything is?”
The shadow chancellor told MPs Labour had inherited a forecasted 4.4% deficit, compared with 10.3% when Labour left office in 2010.
He was cut off shortly after beginning his speech by shouts in the Commons chamber when he said: “Today, she will fool absolutely no-one with a shameless attempt to lay the grounds for tax rises she didn’t have the courage to tell us about.”
The shadow chancellor added: “(Ms Reeves) says the information is new, but she herself told The Financial Times, ‘You don’t need to win an election to find out the state of public finances as we’ve got the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) now’.
“Paul Johnson of the IFS (Institute for Fiscal Studies) says the state of public finances were apparent pre-election to anyone who cared to look, which is why he and other independent figures say her argument is not credible and won’t wash.”
Responding, the Chancellor said: “Specifically on the black hole, we couldn’t have known these numbers because the party opposite didn’t tell the OBR these numbers.
“That is why we are in the position we are in today, and that is the biggest scandal of them all.”
On public sector pay, Ms Reeves told the Commons accepting the independent pay review bodies’ recommendations “is the right decision for the people who work in and, most importantly, the people who use our public services, giving hardworking staff the pay rises they deserve while ensuring that we can recruit and retain the people we need”.
Conservative former Treasury minister Dame Harriett Baldwin said: “What a chilling political choice to choose to take away the winter fuel allowance from a 90-year-old on an income of £10,000 a year – and that was a political choice.”
