Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
23 June 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
Given all that is going on, this could be the last time. The legacy of this Chancellor has been the highest taxes on record, a benefits bill spiralling out of control, and unemployment 300,000 higher than it was at the last general election. The right hon. Lady trumpets 2.8% inflation, but that is s…
The right hon. Lady cannot bring herself to answer the simple question I asked. I will tell her: she is borrowing one quarter of a trillion pounds more than the plans that she inherited—that is her legacy. We hear that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) is considering borrowing even…
Commons
Proceedings
21 May 2026
2 contributions
Costs for Motorists
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the Government’s plan for costs for motorists.
May I begin by agreeing with you, Mr Speaker, and saying how disrespectful it is that this U-turn on fuel duty has already been released to the media earlier this week? The news was plastered across national newspapers on Monday, and yesterday the Chancellor conducted a visit to a petrol station wit…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
21 May 2026
Middle East: Economic Response
I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement—although the press, of course, got even more advanced sight of it.
The decision taken to cancel the increase in fuel duty is welcome—it has been a long time coming. The Conservative party has been campaigning against the fuel duty rise for m…
Commons
Oral Questions
28 April 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
In response to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt) on borrowing, the right hon. Lady suggested that she was following a strict deficit reduction plan. I think she made reference to a reduction in the deficit of £20 billion year on year—but, of co…
The right hon. Lady does not seem to know how much additional borrowing this Government are undertaking compared with the plans of the last Government, so I will tell her: it is one quarter of a trillion pounds of additional borrowing across this Parliament. The truth is that this Chancellor is addi…
Commons
Debate
21 April 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
I thank the right hon. Lady for advance sight of her statement.
The UK has some of the highest energy prices in the world. That is crippling our economy and pushing up the cost of living, and it leaves us particularly exposed to energy shocks such as the one we are experiencing right now. Yet the G…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
24 March 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement.
The right hon. Lady comes to the House with an economy in tatters. She would have us believe that she has delivered the stability and resilience that can weather the storm ahead, but she has done nothing of the kind. When she came to office…
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
10 March 2026
2 contributions
Topical Questions
For every single year of the last Conservative Government, we froze fuel duty, and we did so to stand up for hard-working families. Given that petrol prices are surging at the pumps, why has the right hon. Lady chosen now to put up fuel duty?
Given the rapidly rising cost of oil and gas, why does the right hon. Lady believe that it is better to import it than to extract it from the North sea?
Commons
Debate
9 March 2026
Middle East: Economic Update
I thank the Chancellor for advance sight of her statement and add the Opposition’s firm support for our armed forces.
As the Chancellor has made clear, these are very serious and concerning times, and developments in the middle east are already having profound consequences for our economy. Oil pric…
Commons
Ministerial Statement
3 March 2026
5 contributions
Spring Forecast
Is that it? What utter complacency—a Chancellor in denial. She speaks of stability, but what planet is she on? She has lurched from putting up taxes to destroying growth and headroom, and then to coming back and putting up more taxes, with more growth destroyed. Round and round we go, like a fiscal …
Thank you, Mr Speaker; they just do not like the truth—that is the truth of it.
As our economy bleeds out, what does the right hon. Lady do? She comes to this House with nothing to say and with no plan—unless, of course, doing nothing is a cunning plan to avoid those U-turns further down the line. …
+3 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
19 January 2026
2 contributions
Business Rates: Retail, Hospitality and Leisure
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the planned changes to business rates for the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.
That was a complete non-response. The Minister says he will make a statement in future in the usual way; we can only assume that that will be via the media, not this House.
Of all the excuses for a U-turn that we have heard from the Government, this one beggars belief. The Minister expects us to ac…
Commons
Debate
16 December 2025
14 contributions
Finance (No. 2) Bill
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “That” to the end of the Question and add
“this House declines to give a Second Reading to the Finance (No. 2) Bill because the Bill includes provisions breaking the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s promise, given after the Autumn Budget 2024, not to raise…
Sadly, I think the gravediggers are still alive and well under this Government. We are seeing that in the destruction of jobs, businesses, farms and livelihoods up and down this country.
+12 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
10 December 2025
29 contributions
Conduct of the Chancellor of the Exchequer
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Chancellor of the Exchequer to apologise for misleading the country about the state of the public finances, rolling the pitch for raising taxes, breaking her promises and increasing welfare spending, including her claim on 4 November 2025 that the OBR wou…
You are quite right, Madam Deputy Speaker; I meant to say the right hon. Member for Islington North and Liz Truss. The Chancellor is not so much the wilting lettuce as a complete liability. How could this possibly have occurred? We have a Government who came to power with one of the largest majoriti…
+27 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
9 December 2025
2 contributions
Topical Questions
The process surrounding the Budget was utterly chaotic. We had months of damaging speculation, fuelled by briefings and leaks from the Treasury itself. They included briefings on 14 November that moved markets and gave the appearance, at least, of being deliberately inaccurate, which is why we need …
The Office for Budget Responsibility’s own guidance states:
“The interim rounds are transmitted to the Chancellor in confidence”.
Yet the Chancellor repeatedly stated before the Budget that the OBR had downgraded its productivity forecast. In her statement in Downing Street on 4 November, she said…
Commons
Proceedings
3 December 2025
3 contributions
OBR: Resignation of Chair
(Urgent Question ): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the resignation of the chair of the OBR.
Richard Hughes was a respected chair of the OBR, and his departure is a matter of deep regret. The circumstances surrounding his resignation remain unclear—although for the Chancellor, it has clearly been a useful distraction from her own conduct.
On Friday, the OBR took the unprecedented step of p…
+1 more contribution in this session
Commons
Ministerial Statement
1 December 2025
Office for Budget Responsibility Forecasts
I begin with the matter of the report on the OBR leak. We will of course study that report in detail, but as the right hon. Gentleman concluded by saying, “We will respond to this matter with the seriousness it demands”, I seek immediate reassurance that this will not include scapegoating the OBR to…
Commons
Proceedings
27 November 2025
12 contributions
Budget Resolutions
The film “Groundhog Day” sees Phil Connors go to a place where he wakes up every morning to the same DJ playing the same song: “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. We have a very similar situation with the Chancellor. It is groundhog day, with the Chancellor destroying the economy, putting up taxes, …
That is absolutely true.
Let us look at how we ended up at this sorry pass. In opposition, Labour assured the British electorate that they would not be putting up taxes left, right and centre, and when they got into power, what did they do within a few short months? They slapped taxes—£40 billion-w…
+10 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
26 November 2025
Point of Order
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. This morning we have seen an unprecedented leak of the Office for Budget Responsibility’s “Economic and fiscal outlook” report before the Budget. The report contains market-sensitive information. It is utterly outrageous that this has happened, and the leak…
Commons
Debate
17 November 2025
2 contributions
Budget: Press Briefings
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on briefings to the press about the contents of the Budget.
Given that response, the right hon. Gentleman might try a bit of stand-up in his spare time. The process around the Budget is meant to be the most closely guarded secret in Government, but in recent weeks, we have barely been able to pick up a newspaper without reading a fresh report of the latest p…
Commons
Debate
12 November 2025
19 contributions
Taxes
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to control public expenditure in order to keep the promise made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the Confederation of British Industry conference on 25 November 2024 that, after the last Budget, the Government would not raise taxes; and fu…
It was the Korean war—my right hon. Friend is absolutely right.
It is the Chancellor’s choices that have led to this situation. She was the person who chose to put up taxes on jobs, which has led to growth being anaemic. We know that taxes such as national insurance feed through to lower investment…
+17 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
28 October 2025
14 contributions
Stamp Duty Land Tax
I beg to move,
That this House calls on the Government to reduce public expenditure to fund the abolition of stamp duty land tax on primary residences purchased by UK residents, in order to get Britain working, to grow the economy and to give people a stronger stake in their communities through the…
We will take no lessons from the Labour party when it comes to the mismanagement of our economy. What I have just set out has led to a Chancellor who had a Budget in October last year in which she blew all the headroom and more, rebuilt it in the spring and is now, as we all know, heading into the B…
+12 more contributions in this session
Commons
Proceedings
3 September 2025
22 contributions
Property Taxes
I beg to move,
That this House notes recent reports that the Government is considering a wide range of increases to taxes on property; notes the Prime Minister’s commitment last year not to impose Capital Gains Tax on primary residences; and calls on the Government not to introduce an annual proper…
I will do so momentarily.
It started with broken promises. This was a party that said during the run-up to the general election that it had no intention of raising taxes left, right and centre, and yet within a month or two, this Government did precisely that, with devastating consequences: tax ris…
+20 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
15 July 2025
13 contributions
Taxes
I beg to move,
That this House notes that the Government was elected on the basis of a manifesto commitment not to increase taxes on working people and not to increase National Insurance or the basic, higher, or additional rates of Income Tax, or VAT; accordingly regrets the decision to raise emplo…
Indeed, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to stand up for everybody—even our toolmakers.
Let us be frank: we have had to table this motion today, which seeks to do nothing other than reaffirm the commitments that the Labour party has already made, because of the litany of broken promises …
+11 more contributions in this session
Commons
Debate
7 July 2025
4 contributions
Government Performance against Fiscal Rules
(Urgent Question): To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if she will make a statement on the Government’s performance against the fiscal rules.
The Chancellor said that she would not make any commitments that were not
“fully funded and fully costed”,
but the Chief Secretary to the Treasury has just said that he now expects us to wait until the autumn to hear how the Government intend to cover the £6 billion of unfunded commitments that th…
+2 more contributions in this session
Commons
Oral Questions
Treasury
1 July 2025
2 contributions
Topical Questions
The winter fuel payment U-turn will cost £1.25 billion, and the welfare reform U-turn will cost £2.5 billion, all adding to Labour’s unfunded black hole. This is from a Chancellor who said that she would never make a spending commitment without explaining where the money was coming from—yet another …
The House will note that the right hon. Lady did not categorically rule out the possibility of changing the fiscal rules in the autumn. Given that, will she at least confirm that she stands by her commitment not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT in the autumn? Is it a yes, …
Commons
Prime Minister's Questions
Prime Minister
25 June 2025
6 contributions
Engagements
Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to stand opposite the right hon. Lady. Despite what many may think, we have a great deal in common, not least that we both viscerally disagree with the Chancellor’s tax policies. It is also great to see the right hon. Lady standing in temporarily for the Prime…
The right hon. Lady completely sidestepped my question. She cannot even defend her own Government’s policy. Can she at least assure the House that the vote on Tuesday will actually go ahead?
+4 more contributions in this session