Speeches by Baldwin.

“The sentence that I thought was particularly interesting in your letter was where you say that, because there is a limit to the amount that businesses can pass on through reducing their profits, and it is difficult for them to pass on the increase in consumer prices in full, in terms of their costs, it “may point to th…”

“It has happened to a lot of people. We have seen a lot of announcements of job losses.”

“I shall try to make my speech short and snappy, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne) on securing this afternoon’s debate, which has allowed many Members to articulate the concerns that they are hearing from businesses in their constituencie…”

“We have seen jobs being cut at the fastest rate since 2008, haven’t we, Dr Pill?”

“You take it as given.”

“The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that the Budget would cost 50,000 jobs. Is the Bank of England’s forecast different from that?”

“The art of taxation is extracting the largest amount of money with the lowest amount of squeaking from the goose. Yet the Chancellor will have heard the honking of the tractors on Whitehall today in response to her raising an amount of money that will pay for less than one day of NHS spending. Will she commit to revers…”

“I thank the Prime Minister for his statement and for the hard yards he is putting in at the moment for our national security. May I suggest another angle on which the House would appreciate an update? Last year, during an inquiry into Russian sanctions, the Treasury Committee received evidence that Russian hydrocarbons…”

“Do you all agree with that? Does any of you have any additional evidence that you want to share with the Committee?”

“We have more questions on that. The evidence that we have had is that, last year, nearly 100,000 people paid the withdrawal penalty, and only 56,000 people used their LISA to buy a new home. That has to mean that there is a problem with the design here, does it not?”

“We have had evidence that the penalty should be moved to 20%, as it was during the pandemic, on a permanent basis. Does any of you want to make a different case for the penalty? No. Does anyone want to disagree with the evidence that we have heard about the home-buying price, in that, if you end up spending just a bit …”

“Do you all agree with that? Does any of you have any additional evidence that you want to share with the Committee?”

“In your written evidence, all of you say that you have an issue with the withdrawal penalty. I wanted to ask if any of you have any evidence that the withdrawal penalty itself is preventing people from opening a LISA.”

“We have not seen many examples of that, because the product has not been going long enough for that to be an issue.”

“Mr Johnson, more people last year paid this penalty than actually used their LISA to buy their first home. Do you regard that as a design failure?”

“The withdrawal penalty is the biggest deterrent, is it?”

“Is the withdrawal penalty itself, if you can try to just focus on that aspect, acting as a deterrent to people opening these accounts in the first place?”

“I should declare that I was a Treasury Minister at the time that this was announced in the Budget. It is very interesting for me to look now, 10 years on, and see what has and has not worked, and what could be improved. I wanted to draw out a little bit more on the withdrawal penalties. We heard very clearly from Mr Le…”

“There is agreement from all three of our panellists that you would like to see that modification. There was experience during the pandemic of a 20% withdrawal penalty. Are you in favour of reverting to that? Is that effectively what you are saying.”

“You have made that point very clearly to the Committee. Ms Olufunwa, would you make any other modifications to the withdrawal penalty?”