Mentions
What was said, and which frame it usedEvery item the dashboard counts, newest first. The marked words are the phrases that made it count; the tags say whether it used an opposing frame, an MMT-consistent idea, or named MMT. These are keyword matches: whether an item endorses or attacks an idea is shown once our classifier's accuracy is published.
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Workforce Skills
…the support across the House. As I said, further training is to take place throughout the rest of this year, including major exercises that we have taken part in. I restate, however, that we have to live within our means. That has required some reprioritisation, including of training. We have to focus on the right things and make sure that we are ready to fight the next war, not the last one. It has not been a popular decision, but I absolutely stand by the decisions that I have taken to make sure that the culture in my Department is one that lives within its means and delivers value for th…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Inheritance Tax
…driving down waste and driving up efficiency in the public sector, with a 16% reduction in departmental admin budgets by the end of the spending review period. We are reprioritising spending so that taxpayers’ money is spent on their priorities, cancelling digital ID in order to remove VAT from household electricity bills, reprioritising Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spending to help tackle homelessness and bringing the national bus cap down to £2 for 2027, funded by savings from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. We are reforming the welfare system thr…
- Opposing frame: How will you pay for it?
- Opposing frame: Taxpayers' money
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Fiscal Outlook
…Labour decisions have weakened growth, dug us deeper into the debt hole and increased our fiscal vulnerability. What is needed is a plan to control spending and strengthen the underlying budget so we live within our means, bear down on inflation and the cost of our debt, and, above all, get the economy growing faster. But the Government’s actions have produced the reverse of all that. Let us look at spending. I was intrigued to hear the Chancellor say on Monday: “Staying true to our values means being honest about the need to control government spending”. For a moment, I thought I was listen…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- Opposing frame: Maxed-out credit card
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Fiscal Outlook
…London down the road, they are looking at nearly £3 trillion of our national debt, our rising debt interest and our shrinking fiscal buffer, and asking whether we as a nation have a credible plan to live within our means. Here, down the Corridor in the other place, in the City of Westminster, are 403 Labour MPs, many demanding that the Government spend more, tax more, borrow more or, at the very least, do not spend less. Many of those MPs understandably argue that: indeed, it is what brought them into politics. Plaudits to them; they are standing up for their convictions and beliefs. They b…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- Opposing frame: Maxed-out credit card
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Fiscal Outlook
…other growth-driving infrastructure—also in some pump-priming, which the noble Lord, Lord Howell, was encouraging us to think about. Taking this approach is responsible: it means the Government will balance the books with a buffer to protect against uncertainty, will control borrowing, and will reduce long-term pressures on our public finances. As the Chancellor said, there is nothing progressive about spending £1 in every £10 on debt interest. I thought the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Morrissey, was a classic speech from the House of Lords of such insight and expertise about how the…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
- MMT-consistent idea: Deficit myth
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Ukraine and Russia
…me reprioritisation to make sure we are prioritising the activities that will provide most impact at this point in time. I acknowledge, however, that one of our responsibilities as a Department is to live within our means. One discipline I have to bring to the Ministry of Defence, drawing on my experience at the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS, is to ensure there is no culture of routine overspending, that we are improving productivity, that we deliver value for money and that we recognise that the money we are investing in defence comes with choices and trade-offs that appl…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Pharmacies: Government Funding
…ly available to community pharmacies. There is a strong feeling among local branches that the extraordinary contribution pharmacies made during the pandemic has been forgotten. They are struggling to balance the books, as a number of Members have explained. Community pharmacy funding has fallen substantially in real terms over the past decade. The Government’s recent funding settlement is a welcome step in the right direction, with significant increases announced for ’24-25 and ’25-26 and continued support for services such as Pharmacy First, blood pressure checks and contraception, but we m…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Infants, Parents and Carers Bill
…have manageable caseloads, with a number of families that they could visit at the appropriate frequency and provide the necessary support. However, due to funding reductions and the necessary cuts to balance the books, there are reports that individuals now face mountains of casework and up to almost a thousand families per caseworker or healthcare professional. That is clearly not sustainable and will never deliver the support that those families need. In conclusion, I am honoured and delighted to support the Infants, Parents and Carers Bill. It will not solve every challenge facing familie…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Parcel Delivery Services
…eases. Earlier this year, it warned that the increase in employer national insurance contributions announced in the Budget would cost the business some £120 million. For a company that is expected to balance the books while providing a complex, expensive and reliable weekly service, that is not a trivial sum. It is yet another burden placed upon a business whose quality of service was regrettably already in decline. Royal Mail has missed its first-class and second-class delivery targets for the Government’s first two years in office. Additional national insurance tax could otherwise have gon…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Rural Upper-tier Local Authorities
…funding per head in Shropshire. It is projected to fall well below 90% of 2024 funding by 2028, while the national average is set to rise to around 118%. The exceptional financial support provided to balance the books bears interest and must be paid back; it worsens prospects for the future, and for a considerable time. Under the Government’s new devolution plans, there is a risk that the gap between mayoral and non-mayoral authorities could increase further. During the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday, I asked him about the importance of power and resourcing being made available to all…
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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Direction of Government
…n standing behind the Ukrainian people. That was the most powerful part of his statement, precisely because we are working together, so may I encourage him in that direction? We all know that we are under mortal threat, that we must increase the defence budget and that the decisions to pare back the bloated welfare bill are extremely difficult, so why does he not take up the offer of the Leader of the Opposition to deal with this, to meet our international commitments, to reduce dependency, to ensure that we are living within our means, to work together and to do this now? “Action this day.”
- Opposing frame: Household budget
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United Kingdom: Business Competitiveness
I thank the noble Lord for that question. I have been trying to stay in the spirit of our new Prime Minister and to reach the greatest cross-party consensus that we can on this. What the Chancellor and the Prime Minister have said about being really careful about business costs, and making sure that business stays competitive, takes us some way in that direction. But every businessperson will tell you that you need to balance the books, and the comment from my Benches suggested that perhaps, three years ago, that was not taking place.
- Opposing frame: Household budget