Speeches by Glen.

“The point is, surely, that if somebody leaks or briefs some information that materially moves the market, while they might not personally gain they have changed market conditions against the rule of the game, which is that you make those decisions known properly to Parliament on Budget day. If nobody is accountable and…”

“You are encouraging us to come up with a view of how it all worked and make recommendations. Is that what you are saying?”

“I think that people would understand the difference between market actors getting personal or institutional financial gain, and the leaking or briefing of information that moved the markets. But if you step back and look at what this says about the UK, this was a massive failure collectively. The head of the OBR resign…”

“Thank you for what you have said. It seems to me that you are saying that if the outcome of inquiries is that it is a cock-up rather than a conspiracy, and nobody made money out of it wilfully, then nothing is going to happen. Is that a reasonable summary?”

“I am a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and I have seen reports that service chiefs are drafting letters to the Secretary of State warning of their concerns about whether enough money is going into defence. When the delayed defence investment plan is produced, will it give clarity on when the Government will rea…”

“10. What discussions he has had with service chiefs on the proposed level of spending in the forthcoming defence investment plan.”

“May we have a debate on capital expenditure in the NHS? All our constituents will see the tax announcements and then think that that means extra investment. In south Wiltshire, we are still waiting for the elective day surgery announcement to take place. We have been told that it is on hold and that work is trying to b…”

“Governments have to make choices—we all understand that—but the choice that this Government made was not to cut spending on welfare, which has limited their choices elsewhere. There is a real choice. If the Conservatives had been in power, we would not have made those choices over the summer, and the hospitality sector…”

“Could I turn first to threshold freezes, Chancellor? At the ’24 Budget, you said, “I am keeping every single promise on tax that I made in our manifesto. There will be no extension of the freeze in income tax and national insurance thresholds.” You told us earlier that it is not a breach of the manifesto. How can we sq…”

“Your consultation on gambling taxes began with a desire to simplify, and indeed this Committee looked at the matter as well. After your measures in the Budget, we are now in a position where online betting duty is higher than on the high street; where duty on betting on UK racing is lower than for betting on Irish raci…”

“Why did you decide to change the decision on raising the rate of income tax in those 10 days?”

“Do you recognise that, if you look at the distributional analysis, increasing the headline rate of income tax is more progressive than threshold freezes?”

“Okay, very well.”

“I understand your logic, but some of the companies are configured with cross-subsidies in different parts of their business. In essence, do you expect to see a consequential restructuring in the industry? It seems likely that some will not find it viable, because of the nature of the subsidy from different parts of the…”

“I was never Chancellor.”

“I just want to try and clarify that there were more meaningful data points between 4 November and 13 and 14 November.”

“What led to those being meaningfully different?”

“It does raise taxes for working people.”

“Chancellor, I totally recognise the integrity of the spending review process. I am just saying that if you align the reasonable expectations of health spending, education spending and your aspirations on defence, all the other Departments have a pressure that pretty much resonates with what happened between 2010 and 20…”

“Did you make that decision or did the Prime Minister?”