Ed Davey
MP for Kingston and Surbiton · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“I associate myself with the Prime Minister’s opening remarks, not least about the 25th anniversary of the horrific terror attacks of 9/11. I welcome the Government finally banning imports from illegal Israeli settlements, something Keir Starmer should have done a long time ago.”
“I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. Britain should be the safest country in the world to have a baby. We will keep raising this issue until it is the safest.”
“No mother should have to give birth in such circumstances. Does the Prime Minister agree that Musgrove Park cannot wait until 2033 for work to start on a new maternity unit? Will he offer a meeting to local MPs, so we can move it forward? And will he make fixing the maternity scandal across our country a top priority of his Government?”
“I hope at that summit the Prime Minister will negotiate a good deal for our country, our economy and our defence, and that means rejoining the single market. North Devon’s maternity unit has been closed for three weeks due to staff shortages, so women now have to travel for up to two hours to give birth.”
“The Prime Minister said yesterday that Brexit ushered in “a decade of low growth and stalled regeneration.” —[ Official Report , 1 September 2026; Vol. 790, c. 27.] He is right. Our economy is stuck in this mess thanks to the Conservatives—and the leader of Reform UK—and their terrible Brexit deal.”
“There are so many more problems in our political system: too much power in the hands of social media barons who interfere in our politics and crypto billionaires who use donations to buy influence; and too little power in the hands of our people.”
The complete record
Every one of 6,005 lines we hold for Ed Davey, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 18 of 121.
“Surely, if money is given now so they can deal with cash flow—capped, in a temporary scheme—then that money can be clawed back the next time they do their self-assessment, if it turns out that they did not need it. I honestly urge those on the Treasury Bench to move fast, and not to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. People need the money now: please act now.”
“I think that an urgent package of help is needed now, and it needs to be at least the equivalent of that offered to employees. While we all know the problems that the Treasury is facing, may I say to the Chief Secretary that if the package is capped as it was for employees, if it is temporary as it was for employees and, especially for the self-employed, if there is some sort of clawback mechanism if people are given money that they did not need, surely we can come together as a House and as a country to make sure these people get the support they need? It is not uncommon for the self-employed, when they do their annual self-assessment tax return, to have to pay money back to the Treasury.”
“They are cleaners, taxi drivers, plumbers, hairdressers; they are musicians, tutors, journalists; and they are builders, electricians and child minders. These people are literally running out of money now, and we have to support them. Of course there will be stories about wealthy people who are self-employed, but they are the minority. If we look at the figures from HMRC’s own data, 36% of sole traders—the majority of the self-employed—have taxable incomes of less than £10,000 a year. That compares with just 15% of employees on incomes that low. We are talking about people on low incomes: 60% have profits of less than £10,000 a year. These people were struggling before the coronavirus pandemic, and they are now facing ruin.”
“I thank the Chief Secretary to the Treasury for that answer. He knows that parties on all sides of the House have been supportive of the way in which the Chancellor and the Treasury have given support to businesses and to employees. But I have to tell him that the 5 million self-employed people across the country, who are in all our constituencies, are in real stress and are deeply worried. While we all understand that there are complications, the Government have to move as fast as possible to meet their concerns, because they are literally, in many cases, simply running out of money. I want to say to those on the Treasury Bench that it is important we remember who the self-employed are: 80% of the 5 million self-employed are sole traders. They are our neighbours, our friends, our family. The vast majority are not wealthy people.”
“It is good to see the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), back in her place—I am not sure whether the Secretary of State still needs to have 2 metres distance. May I press the Secretary of State on personal protective equipment? I hear what he says, and it is good that the military are being involved in the distribution, but is there enough PPE available for all healthcare workers and social care workers? If not, what is happening with manufacturing and the procurement from around the world, because we are told there is some available from around the world?”
“Can the Minister confirm that the amounts that we are talking about in this Bill relate to departmental spending that may need to happen over the next few months, and that they do not relate to the balance sheet of the Bank of England or any of the lending facilities that have been made available to business?”
“At a time when it is very difficult for people to know how their business is going to pan out—how can they know that in such an uncertain certain time?—no one in their right mind would give those sorts of personal guarantees. It is just not realistic for them to put their house and the whole family’s income and savings on the line. The Government are going to have to think again about the terms of the loan guarantee scheme. These are unusual times and the Government have made money available; rather than just giving a guarantee to the financial institution, they will have to find a way to transfer that guarantee to the business concerned. I know there are huge moral hazards with that—I get that—but if they do not, it is not going to work.”
“That shows Members how dramatic is the impact of what is happening out there. There should be clarity from the Government on that because leadership is important. The second thing on which the hon. Gentleman is right—I really want to impress this upon those on the Treasury Bench, and we have heard other colleagues talk about it already—is the genuine accessibility of the loans that have been made available via the Bank of England. The Government trumpeted their announcement and we all welcomed it, but I keep hearing stories of small businesses that find that, if they can get through to the bank—by the way, it is taking quite a long time, although that is not a complaint, because of course a lot of people are contacting the banks and I expect they are extremely busy—they have to give personal guarantees.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake). He made two points with which I wish strongly to agree. First, I agree on the need for clarity on people who can go to work: who are the essential workers? The issue is causing huge concern. If there are too many people on public transport because we are not leaving it for the essential workers, that is bad for the whole public objective of stopping the virus spreading. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right on that. The bad news is that people are almost going to be forced to stay at home anyway because business is collapsing. Let us take the construction industry, which the hon. Gentleman talked about. I am getting messages telling me that because mortar supplies are basically collapsing, people will not be able to do any construction.”
“When we hear stories now about ordinary people who have put their lives into building their businesses not getting help from the banks because the banks are getting in the way, I have to tell the banks that they have to sort themselves out, because this House will not be able to resist the political pressure. We need the banks in our society, right? No one is suggesting that they do not play a critical role, but if at this stage, after we helped them out 10 years ago, the banks do not come to the rescue of small businesses, sole traders, the self-employed and ordinary people, they will reap a whirlwind. I really worry about that, because I believe in the banking system, but the banks have got to step up to the plate.”
“If that is just a loan on their personal bank account, with the interest we have been talking about, that is not going to work for people. People are going to be in real trouble. I welcome what the Government have done, but they need to look at how it is operating in practice—and look at it fast. People out there remember what happened in the financial crisis. They remember that this House said, across party lines, that we must bail out the banks—that the banks could not collapse and the financial system had to keep going. They were pretty upset, because a lot of them took cuts in their own income and then saw that although some bankers lost their jobs—we acknowledge that—many did not, and the banking system sort of recovered and looked like it was treated with quite a lot of generosity through our taxpayers’ money.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is that old saying, “If you borrow a lot, you are able to borrow more,” whereas those people who have run things prudently are finding it a problem. This is a really crucial issue and the Government must give it some urgent attention. In the exchanges on the urgent question that I asked earlier on the self-employed, there were some welcome statements about the loans being available to sole traders and the self-employed more widely, but I do not think they will be able to access them, because they will not be able to give those sorts of personal guarantees. Given that cashflow is going to be king, certainly until the Government come up with a solution for the self-employed, they will have to have access to some money.”
“These technical things sound as though they are available only for pointy-heads in the Treasury, but quantitative easing is a political issue and we have not debated that. It has massive social and economic consequences, and we need to make sure that there is democratic accountability on them, and that they are properly understood and work in the interests of society.”
“That is monetary policy, where we are, in effect, printing money and sending it out. That happened after the 2008 crash and it is happening now. I am not against it, but I just say that the way it works is not some sort of technical, politically neutral, value-neutral system; it has implications for economic equality in this country, because the money tends to go to people in the City—the financial institutions. It does not go to ordinary people and ordinary businesses. So if we are going to get things right this time and have quantitative easing, I urge the Minister to let us have a debate about how those mechanisms actually work, because in crises we do not want economic inequality worse; we want to make it better.”
“I raised this issue when I was in government and tried to get the then Chancellor to look at it. There was a flurry of excitement and then the dead hand of the Treasury said, “No way, we are not giving up control.” That was the wrong move, because control can be exercised with greater transparency. I hope that that may be one thing that comes from this experience in this emergency situation. Let me end with some reflections on the economy, where we are at and the lessons we are taking. I talked about the importance of the banks really delivering, given the agreement with the Government and the Bank of England. That is probably the most essential message from me tonight. There are some longer-term things and possibly some relatively short-term things to address, one of which is the way we do the Bank of England’s quantitative easing.”
“Other Parliaments do those things quite easily—the Swedish and New Zealand Parliaments are good models. Our approach undermines the value for money and undermines what we are here for, and we really need to look at the estimates procedure. That is why this Bill looks so weird in many ways; it is called the Contingencies Fund Bill and we are not used to doing this sort of thing, because we have given up control over supply—it is just nodded through. The last time MPs voted against a spending request of the Government was in 1919, more than 100 years ago We have given up properly controlling the draft estimates. Although I will be supporting the Bill tonight, because it is really important that we let this one through, I just want to say to the Minister that I hope we can reflect on this.”
“It is a cure for insomnia, so I do not necessarily suggest people read it, but in it I tried to argue that this House does not really have sovereignty over the Budget. We look at these Bills when they come along and we nod them through, but our processes of examining draft budgets and estimates are shocking. In my pamphlet, I made the comparison with all the OECD countries, and this House has the worst processes for examining draft budgets and measures such as this Bill—that is worrying. I do not wish to resurrect the Brexit debate, but it was supposed to be about parliamentary sovereignty and I used to say, “I wish we had some.” That is because this House rarely, if ever, looks at the estimates properly, analyses them in Select Committees and makes proposals about draft spending decisions.”
“I hope that there will be genuine desire and action on behalf of the Treasury to get some money out—on account, if you like—to them so that they have the cash flow to ensure that they can provide the extra services that they are being asked to provide. It is essential that we hear that local authorities are getting the support that the Whitehall Departments seem to be getting. I said that I also wanted to talk about the supply process. This legislation is part of the almost anachronistic supply process in this House. I am afraid that I am a bit of a geek on this. In 2000, I wrote a pamphlet called “Making MPs Work For Our Money: Reforming Parliament’s Role In Budget Scrutiny”.”
“If I have understood correctly, there is a big increase in expenditure because we need one—for the health service, our social care system and other parts of our public services that need the cash now. I have another question for the Minister. If these contingencies are being given to Departments so that they have the cash they need, is the money also being given to local authorities? I want to underline this point: local authorities are on the frontline now, and they are having to spend money all the time on a whole range of things that are completely unbudgeted for. They are confused about the proposals for business rates, whether they are going to get any income in, what money they have to give out and all the rest of it. Local authorities are slightly unclear about what is happening.”
“In absolute figures, the amount before this Bill would have been £10.7 billion. That has gone up to £266 billion. I hope that the Minister can explain why. It does not seem unreasonable, given the pressures on Departments, but it is quite a big change. I am not against it—let me be clear that I will be supporting the Bill today—but it would be good to put on the record, for the House and for history, why that figure has been chosen. When people look at this situation in the future, they will need to know why that decision was taken. The Minister said in his opening remarks that this was not an increase in expenditure. Well, I hope that he meant to say that it is an increase in expenditure in that it takes account of commitments that the Chancellor has made both in the Budget and since the Budget.”
“Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) said; this is vital to all of us, and we need to send a message to those who are running the banks that we are expecting them to step up. It is time that they did their duty, right? I actually want to come to my speech, because that was just a response to the hon. Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Bim Afolami). I want to talk about the Bill in front of us—I know that is a bit unusual—as well as the supply process of which it is a part, and then I will give some thoughts on the economy. On the Bill, will the Minister tell us why the Treasury chose to change the percentage limit of the contingencies fund, which is normally set at 2% of total authorised expenditure in the preceding year, to 50% until the end of 2020-21?”
“The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point, and backs up the thrust of what I am trying to say. The banks have been given access to free money. They are being looked after by the Bank of England through this extension of the Bank of England’s balance sheet, so they are doing okay. So why are they not stepping up to help the rest of the economy? There are some really quite serious questions on this issue. I hope that the Government say in response to this debate that they, the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority are going to look at this situation, because it is just not good enough. I want to work on a cross-party basis on this issue, as the hon.”
“The hon. Gentleman has a point and he is right to take me up on that. I think that there is an improvement, but I do not think we have debated this in the context of QE and the monetary side of the policy response. I think we need to do that, because we need to unpick some deep issues here and I do not think this House has understood that. Although I am a big fan of the independent Bank of England, and I do not think we should interfere with the setting of interest rates, I do think QE raises some political questions which are not technical and require accountability.”
“Regulations and laws make markets and there have always been those.”
“I half agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think inflation is going to be the problem; people have not got any money. This form of QE is often called helicopter money and perhaps that is the right move now, and we need to be debating it. I have a final comment to make and then I will sit down. When we reflect in a few months on this crisis and what has gone on, we will have to look at some of the underlying assumptions of our economic models. I am not saying that we should rip them up—I do not believe that at all—but how the state underpins and works with the market is really important. What I mean by that is that there is an assumption that the market can do it all, that the market is fantastic and that Governments should come out of the way, but markets only exist because of Governments.”
“The hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Without rules and regulations on competition, on fair play for employees and on consumer protections, markets will not work. Where there is no consumer protection, consumers do not have faith in the products and services being provided, so the markets cannot work. I absolutely think that we need to reflect on that, because I do not think that the model has been working well enough. I will end on that comment, because I hope that we will learn from this and have a proper debate about how our economy will work in future.”
“I hope the Minister is right on the banks, but my main point is about the estimates. Actually, we have only three days to debate the estimates. I have attended estimates debates in this House over the last 20 years; when we have estimates days, we never debate the estimates. That is my point.”
“Is the Secretary of State aware that many people in the refugee community in the UK are qualified healthcare professionals? I have spoken to the refugee charity RefuAid, which says it has 514 qualified healthcare professionals on its books. These are people who are willing to work and are fully qualified in their own country, but there are bureaucratic barriers to their coming forward. Will he please look into this matter with great urgency so that such people can help us out?”
“Our economy faces its biggest challenge since the second world war—disruption to business on a scale even greater than would have been caused by the worst-case scenario of a no-deal Brexit. Surely the Government should think again and allow themselves to extend the Brexit transition period. We on the Liberal Democrat Benches will support the Bill tonight, but with a very heavy heart. We hope the Government will come back and allow the House to ensure that we can protect our country against this coronavirus threat but not ditch our civil liberties and human rights.”
“NHS staff who have contacted me are angry and alarmed at the lack of PPE. They do not understand why the distribution system has taken so long and is still failing to provide PPE for so many people. The testing experience in this country compares appallingly with other countries. There are other problems with the Bill. Due to the time, I will mention just one: the Bill’s failure to enable the Government to extend the Brexit transition period. I know that is politically sensitive and contentious. I know we need to bring our country together after Brexit tore us apart, so I do not seek to reopen the Brexit question, despite what my heart tells me. I raise the Brexit transition period as a practical and real issue.”
“Let me give one reason why a more frequent renewal process should be considered. It relates to the Bill’s provisions on social care. The Bill temporarily suspends the duties on local authorities to meet people’s care needs—from older people to adults and children with disabilities. I am yet to be convinced that those provisions are needed at all. They are some of the most alarming provisions in the Bill. At a time when the most vulnerable in our society need more care, not less, why on earth are people’s rights being reduced? At the very least, such a reduction in rights for the elderly, disabled and mentally ill must be subject to early review and renewal. The right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt) was right to raise the issue of personal protective equipment and testing.”
“Nevertheless, our position is that the powers must be used only when absolutely necessary during this emergency, and not for a moment longer. Like others, I welcome the Government’s change of heart on the two-year renewal. The six months now proposed is, self-evidently, a significant improvement. Nevertheless, we remain unclear why it is six months rather than three months. There may be good reasons, but it is important that the Government set out why they chose six months. After all, the Prime Minister said just the other day that the peak of the epidemic would be just 12 weeks away, so it is not unreasonable to ask why six months is needed. Moreover, we need to look carefully at the review process. When it comes, it should enable amendments to this law, and the other place needs to be allowed to vote on it too.”
“I begin by thanking everyone who is working hard to keep our country and our world as safe as possible from this dangerous pandemic. Above all, I want to thank the staff of our NHS and our social care sector. We are seeing people face personal risks, and we will forever be grateful for what they are doing. In normal times, I and my party would be opposing many of the measures in the Bill with every breath in our bodies. The implications for civil liberties and human rights are profound and alarming, but our society now faces the unprecedented threat of coronavirus, which leaves some of the most vulnerable in our society at serious risk. It seems clear that at least some of the new powers being sought by the Government are necessary to deal with the threat.”
“I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing this debate to the House. In the all-party loan charge group, we took evidence from a number of family members of people who had committed suicide as a result of the loan charge, and I can underline the point that he is making. The impact on people who had been law-abiding and hard-working throughout their lives has been quite traumatic. In a particular case that I remember—I am sure that the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) will remember this—the person who took his own life did not owe a huge amount of money. It was the fact that he had been made to feel like a criminal when he was anything but a criminal.”
“The intervention from the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) was spot on: this has brought the House together. The issue is not about tax avoidance. I think everyone on both sides of the House agrees that tax avoidance should be clamped down on, and there is no disagreement that the loan charge could apply in the future. What has deeply concerned many of us is that this is an offence against the rule of law, which is supposed to be a basic British tradition—one of our core values, which is taught in our schools. I therefore totally agree with the points made by the right hon. Gentleman.”
“There is a 2016 technical note to which our report refers and in which HMRC specifically says that that is what the legislation said. I find it quite extraordinary that successive Ministers have tried to defend this double-talk from HMRC. As the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden said, no court rulings in any way interpreted legislation in the way that the Morse review does. I have a huge amount of respect for Sir Amyas Morse, but on this point he is entirely wrong. I do not read all the tax literature, but the tax experts who have contacted us are really clear that Morse is getting the legislation, as it was understood at the time, completely wrong.”
“In specific detail, the expert witnesses whom we saw in the APPG made it clear that that legislation covered only some of the schemes to which the loan charge applies—those schemes that involved employees who were being paid via a third party—but completely omitted entire existing schemes that involve the self-employed, companies and loans paid directly to employees. There can be no doubt that the legislation on which Morse was relying does not apply to many people, because they are just not covered by that legislation. It is not a question of debate; it is just a fact. At the time, experts looked at the legislation and responded in the way that one would expect: they looked at what the legislation said and changed their advice accordingly. Indeed, HMRC’s advice was based on what was actually in the Act, surprisingly enough.”
“I am really unhappy with the way that the Government have responded to the Morse review itself, but the review does have a big flaw at its heart. Because the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden set out that flaw in detail, I do not need to speak for so long. In essence, Morse says that the law that was passed in 2011 in respect of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, and particularly part 7A, made it clear. Now, the right hon. Gentleman showed that it did not make it clear, even for those people directly linked to it, because of the timings that he set out.”
“I would have thought that Her Majesty’s Treasury and HMRC would have agreed with all the recommendations, in the spirit of the Morse review, but they have not. They have rejected some in full and some in part, and they interpret some in a way that is clearly not intended by the Morse review. For example, one group of taxpayers about whom I have been most worried is those who have had closed tax years—in other words, their tax affairs, properly given to HMRC with all the relevant material and back-up, had been accepted and the tax year had been closed. There can be no doubt that going back to such a year is complete and utter retrospection, yet the Government are still seeking to apply the loan charge to those years. They have narrowed in a most outrageous way the way we consider the concept of a closed tax year.”
“It is fair to say—I put this on record on behalf of the APPG—that we welcome many aspects of his report. He talks about how unusual the loan charge is and how unique it is in respect of how it overrides statutory time limits, which are meant to protect the individual taxpayer, and how it looks back over 20 years. What an astonishing piece of legislation to put forward. The report has a number of good recommendations. For example, it says that if the loan charge continues, after 10 years of repayment any remaining liability should be written off if the taxpayer has earnings of less than £30,000. One would have thought that that was a reasonable recommendation, even if the Government want to stand by the loan charge, but they have rejected it. The Government rejected even that relatively modest recommendation.”
“I have been on a number of all-party groups during my time in the House, as I am sure you have, Mr Deputy Speaker, and it is relatively unusual for an APPG to do such a thorough and detailed report in such a short time. If I have one disagreement with the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden it is that I wish he had given us a little bit more time to do our work before this debate, although I am really pleased that we have got this debate. I hope the Minister, whatever he says from the Dispatch Box in response to this debate, will undertake to read the APPG’s report and to respond to it. When the Morse review was set up, we welcomed it; it was what we had been seeking. We had meetings with Sir Amyas, and we gave him a huge amount of material.”
“I should say that he wanted to be here today, but he has a family issue that has kept him away. Not only do we represent colleagues from across the House, but I believe we have gone about our business in a pretty professional way, with the support of the Loan Charge Action Group as our secretariat. We have produced reports in the past, and as a group we have reviewed the Morse review itself and published our response. That follows two witness sessions, where we had tax experts and loan charge victims. We have received more written evidence, and we have built on our previous work. This 63-page report, published today, has 17 key findings on the Morse review and it makes 19 recommendations.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis). I am delighted to say that on this occasion I agree with every word he said. It is the nature of this debate that it has brought those on all sides together. For people who normally are not necessarily in total agreement on economic and tax affairs, this has brought us together. That is for the reason the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) gave: it is about natural justice. I set up the loan charge APPG last year, and I think it has become a group that illustrates the way in which the House has come together. We now have 227 members. My co-chairs are the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ruth Cadbury) and the right hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning).”
“We took no such evidence and no such evidence was proffered to us. It might exist out there, but we have certainly not seen it. I do not want to detain the House any longer, as I have made my core point. The whole reason why this has been such a big issue and has united the House is that the loan charge is retrospective, and that is unfair and wrong. We have to defend individual taxpayers, even if we think they might have been ill-advised in the first place. We have to defend the law. Why do we meet in this House? Why do we pass laws, unless we come back here and say, “Government—you’re breaking the law”, and hold them to account for that? That is our constitutional job, and I thank right hon. and hon. Members from across the House for doing their duty.”
“Our economy is suffering a heart attack, one deeper and bigger than in 2008, so the Chancellor has a serious responsibility and he deserves constructive engagement from everyone in this House, including my party. His main task is to ensure that there is confidence among the business community and the British people. I have to tell him that although he has made a good start, this is still very much a work in progress. His package for the business sector was large, but may I urge him to say far more about the loan terms he is putting forward? Many small businesses will be very worried about taking on this debt. May I also urge him to go much faster to give confidence to the ordinary people who are suffering in our constituencies?”
“I associate my party with the good wishes sent to the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries) and, indeed, to anyone who has contracted coronavirus. I welcome the fact that the Government are listening to experts on coronavirus, but given that the NHS has to face the coronavirus challenge with a record shortage of nurses, and the care sector has more than 120,000 vacancies, does the Prime Minister not agree that the three Conservative Governments since 2015 should have fixed the roof when the sun was shining?”
“On page 8, it says that the UK’s output has already fallen by 2%, thanks to the Brexit uncertainty, and the future loss will be at least 4% of national income. This will hit the living standards of all our constituents. That is why productivity performance is down, and when our small companies are faced with a barrage of red tape at the borders, not surprisingly exports will go down and we will see small companies go to the wall. I do not see in these Budget proposals anything to help those small businesses.”
“This year, with poor world economic growth, it is 1.1%, before coronavirus, but at the end of this forecasting period, in 2023 it is just 1.3%, and in 2024 it is just 1.4%. That is a disastrous performance. These figures are from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility, and of course the question is: what is lying behind those figures? If it is a forecast for four or five years’ time, it is not the coronavirus and it is not the world economy; it is something that is going wrong in our economy, and it is the Government who must take the blame. So what is it? When we read the OBR report, and I have been flicking through it, it suggests that—guess what?—it is the impact of Brexit and the Government’s new immigration system. The Conservative party may not like the fact, but it is there in the OBR report.”
“People working in the gig economy, people on zero-hours contracts and the self-employed are particularly vulnerable, and the Government need to ensure that the measures they have announced today go far enough. It would be completely wrong if we gave tens of billions of pounds to the banks during the 2008 financial crisis but were now not able to look after people working hard on low incomes. That has to be a priority. When I look at this Budget today, I am deeply alarmed: I am alarmed by the growth figures. I have looked at Budgets over 30 years, and I have rarely seen a Budget where the growth forecast for the British economy for the whole forecasting period is less than 2%—and that is before coronavirus is taken into account.”
“The World Health Organisation pronounced today that the coronavirus is now a pandemic, so it is not surprising that the Bank of England and the Government have together issued a big joint package of economic stimulus, which is to be welcomed. The question is: is it the right size? The truth is that we do not know. The levels of uncertainty are extremely high, and we will need to keep this under review. I hope that the Government stand ready to come back to the House if the economic downturn that will be caused by coronavirus spirals further. I particularly hope that the Government will keep under review the support for people on low incomes who have to self-isolate.”