Speeches by Baldwin.

“Yes, could you let the Committee know if they have saved anything, or what they are expected to save?”

“They said a bit worse, actually.”

“I totally agree.”

“It has been taking forever.”

“Well, we can monitor the impact of that as time goes by, but could you help the Committee out with the extra £500 a year in real household disposable income that you cited? What official document is that published in?”

“Chancellor, in your documents, you mentioned the fact that you are looking at ISAs. The Committee is also looking at lifetime ISAs. I wondered whether you could set out your vision and timetable for that look at ISAs to help people invest more in the growing sectors of the economy. What is your vision for getting peopl…”

“Is that by year, or cumulatively?”

“Can I ask the same question of Mr Hughes: did business and consumer confidence take a bigger hit after the October Budget than you had put into your forecasts?”

“I will give Mr Josephs a chance to speak, because I am very struck by the fact that you were last in front of this Committee five months ago and since then there have been some quite big changes in terms of the economic and fiscal outlook. The headline number that got a lot of traction last week was that growth has hal…”

“We are just more exposed to interest rates than we were before, aren’t we?”

“More than the rest of the world, or in line with the rest of the world?”

“We are already hearing speculation about tax increases in the next Budget. People can see through some of these bad revisions of the forecast and recognise that it is going to be hard for the Chancellor to do more on the spending side. They recognise that unless growth actually materialises there will be difficult choi…”

“This has been a genuinely important, interesting and lively debate on product regulation and metrology. It has also been a debate about the balance of power between the Executive and us here in Parliament. The UK product safety and metrology framework is derived from European Union law and it developed while the UK was…”

“Many, many compassionate people across West Worcestershire and the whole of the United Kingdom will be wanting to know what they can do to help in this situation, so will the Minister give us some further information on how UK taxpayers may donate and whether there will be an aid match?”

“Further to the question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), and knowing how much the Minister values soft power, can he reassure the House that there will be no further cuts to the British Council or the World Service in the Balkans on his watch?”

“At the general election, the Chancellor promised growth and no increase in taxes, but as Chancellor, she has delivered no growth and a record increase in taxes. Now, the Office for Budget Responsibility is halving her growth forecast this year, with cumulatively half a percent less over the forecast period. More worryi…”

“But the Payment Systems Regulator, from the Committee’s point of view, and certainly speaking personally, rolled out authorised push payment reimbursement last October, which many of our constituents benefit from. Forgive me for being a bit sceptical, but I am sceptical that that would have happened if payment systems …”

“Okay. As you say, it is a counterfactual and we can hold different views on that. When did you hear about the decision, Mr Alder? Was it the same day that we heard that David Geale and the chair of the Payment Systems Regulator heard about it—in other words, the day before it was publicly announced?”

“Mr Rathi, in your operational decisions, in terms of integrating the PSR into your organisation, have you scored any savings in any budget projections?”

“By the end of next year?”