Conservative response to John McDonnell’s pre-budget speech

Responding, Liz Truss MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said:

‘Since the Labour Party wrecked our economy, we’ve got the deficit down while investing record amounts in public services and keeping taxes low. This year Conservatives gave public servants their biggest pay rise in 10 years, and announced £20 billion more for the NHS.

“We’re focused on growing the economy so everyone can have a well-paid job and we have more money to invest in public services. Labour’s plans to spend £1,000 billion and make business the “enemy” would crash the economy all over again, and just like last time working people would pay the price.’

ENDS

Notes to Editors

We have made strong progress fixing our finances, so we can support public services, keep taxes low and get debt falling…

• ·         We are getting the deficit down so we can spend more on vital public services, it is down by four-fifths because of the decisions we have taken. In 2009-10 the deficit (public sector net borrowing) was 9.9 per cent of GDP that has fallen by four-fifths to 1.9 per cent in 2017-18 (OBR, Public Finances Databank, 25 September 2018, link).

• ·         We are getting debt falling so we can spend less on debt repayments and more on public services.  Under Labour debt more than doubled, but because of our balanced approach we will now start to see debt falling as a percentage of GDP next year, reducing the burden of debt on the next generation. In addition, borrowing is at a 16-year low (OBR, Public Finances Databank, 25 September 2018, link; ONS,Public sector finances, UK: September 2018, 19 October 2018, link).

• ·         We’re helping businesses to create more jobs with unemployment down by over 1 million since 2010. In the three months to April 2010, there were 2.5 million people unemployed. In the three months to August 2018 there were 1.36 million people unemployed (ONS, Labour Market Statistics, 16 October 2018, link).

• ·         We’ve seen the UK economy grow by over 17 per cent since 2010. In Q1 2010, UK GDP measured £432,106 million which rose to £506,031 million in Q2 2018 meaning that the value of the UK economy rose £83,855 million  or 16.8 per cent since Labour left office (ONS,Gross Domestic Product: chained volume measures, 28 September  2018, link).

• ·         Providing an extra £20.5 billion for the NHS by 2023-24. A part of a historic five-year budget settlement, we are providing £394 million extra a week for the NHS. This is an average real terms increase of 3.4 per cent a year to 2023-24 (The Andrew Marr Show, 17 June 2018, archived; Prime Minister’s Speech, 18 June 2018, link).

• ·         Given public sector workers their biggest pay rise in almost 10 years, recognising the vital work that teachers, the police, armed forces, prison officers, doctors and dentists do. Because of the balanced approach we take to the public finances, we were able to announce the biggest pay rise in almost 10 years for around a million public sector workers. This is fair to public sector workers, affordable for taxpayers, and will help make sure we have the workforce we need to deliver world class public services’ (HMT press release, 24 July 2018, link).

Labour don’t know how to handle the economy and it would be working people paying the price…

• ·         Labour hid up to one thousand billion pounds of extra spending in their 2017 manifesto, meaning more spent on debt interest repayments and less on public services like our NHS. Leaked internal emails from the run up to the 2017 General Election have revealed Labour knew their figures across almost every area of their manifesto were ‘implausible or entirely absent’, hiding £1 trillion of spending commitments. Analysis has since proved this to be correct (Philip Cowley, The British General Election of 2017, p.193, archived; The Daily Mail, 7 October 2018, link).

• ·         Labour have made 38 unfunded spending commitments since the last election – meaning either more broken promises, or more borrowing and taxes. That means Labour have made a new unfunded spending commitment on average once every two weeks (CRD Analysis, available upon request).

• ·         Labour’s Shadow Chancellor said that business is ‘the real enemy’ and said it’s part of his job description to overthrow capitalism(The Times, 21 May 2018, link; John McDonnell, POA Conference, 12 May 2011, archived).