The MP for Enfield Southgate helped to sink tax credit and Sunday Trading changes – and now has eye on the Government’s housing benefit plans for young people.
Hammond was right to postpone the date by which he aims to achieve a balanced budget. But whether or not Tory MPs really have the appetite for one is doubtful.
Overall, my advice is not to seek to reduce interest rates yet further which could have contrarian effects.
“George Osborne now finds himself trapped by the decisions he has already taken and the dividing lines he himself created.”
Continuing our series on how the Prime Minister’s aim of a reformed Europe, claimed by him as the basis for a Remain vote, was not achieved by his renegotiation.
The clamour about last week’s elections and June’s EU referendum is obscuring the deep problems that the Government and the country face.
The new Work and Pensions Secretary must reclaim it as a tool for improving living standards, rather than accept its current form as a Treasury-led cost cutting plan.
The Government should look at other family tax allowances to compensate, but the transferable allowance is the most obvious place to start.
The Budget ducked the hard choices that need to be made.
The Commons should not reject this Lords amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill.
The Autumn Statement and Spending Review were far too interventionist.
The Chancellor allowed his focus to waver – but Conservative MPs established the conditions under which he did so.
How pink and prosperous Cameron looked, for he knew the Opposition had just made a laughing stock of itself.
“The simplest thing to do is not to phase in these changes but to avoid them altogether.”
By helping in-work tax credits claimants work just an hour a day more…the savings to the Exchequer would come to a staggering £4.1 billion.