Autumn Statement and Spending Review: Chancellor stuns Commons with tax

“The government is still planning deep cuts to in work benefits”. “But people raised concerns with me that the speed of getting there was too quick, that we weren’t doing enough to help families in the transition”, he said.

He said: “We have got a very strong Prime Minister in David Cameron…”

“I’ve been asked to help in the transition as Britian moves to the higher wage, lower tax society the country wants to see”.

But policing, health, education, global aid and defence budgets have all been protected. There were plenty of cuts that they wanted to make to the welfare budget, but they were still a few billion pounds short. Frankly, I just don’t agree with that and I don’t think the British public agree with that.

“We believe it’s the right decision given the variety of threats we’re facing”. That’s what I did yesterday.

The Chancellor should now look more closely at advancing tax-credit reform by “re-recognising family responsibility” in the tax system.

But shadow chancellor John McDonnell condemned Mr Osborne’s record, telling MPs that over the last five years there has barely been a target the Chancellor has not missed or ignored.

“Upgraded growth predictions gave the Chancellor more room to manoeuvre than he’d had previously, which enabled him to deliver a Spending Review that will provide reassurance to businesses and consumers alike. Now I find that deeply ironic”.

The party describes it as a “smoke and mirrors” review of the controversial policy, and not a full reversal of plans.

Mr McDonnell said that producing the book, which he had from his days as a politics student, had been a “self-deprecating joke”.

Taxpayers could be handing the Government an extra £5 billion over the coming five years thanks to changes announced in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement. That kind of gesture politics is not something I will consider.

Mr Osborne also promised to address the “crisis of home ownership in our country” by pushing almost £7 billion into improving the housing sector.

The director of the independent economic thinktank the Institute of Fiscal Studies warned there was only a “50-50” chance of the revenue forecasts remaining so positive.

“If he is unlucky – and that’s nearly a 50/50 shot – he will either have to revisit the spending decisions, raise taxes, or abandon the target”.

In the speech before the Commons, Osborne revealed that the forecast for debt over the course of parliament has been revised downwards, saving the government £27bn and decreasing the amount borrowed by £8bn.

“The city council faces equally stark choices and over the next four years we are working on having to save up to £4million from our annual budget by 2019/20”.

“IFS research today shows that George Osborne has not reversed his welfare cuts, he has just delayed them, and 2.6 million families will still be on average £1,600 worse off by 2020”.