Hostile reception for Danny Alexander
Chief secretary Danny Alexander found himself accused of “meddling” in the housing sector and coming up with policies which resembled a “dog’s dinner” while giving evidence to MPs on the Commons’ Treasury committee.
The Liberal Democrats’ man in the Treasury, who played a key role in developing last month’s comprehensive spending review, endured repeated hostile questions from Labour committee members in the two-hour session.
Edmonton MP Andy Love challenged Mr Alexander to repeat his assertion that the spending review was progressive, despite the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ conclusion that the government’s approach would have an overall regressive effect.
“The distributional analysis we have done… demonstrates my claim, that the impact of the spending review is progressive and fair,” Mr Alexander insisted.
He was questioned on changes to child benefit by Streatham’s Chuka Umunna, who called proposals to remove the payment for high-earning parents “a bit of a dog’s dinner”.
He asked: “how are you going to keep tabs on this situation involving millions of couples?”
“The tax system requires people to make all sorts of tax declarations,” Mr Alexander replied.
“I’m not sure this particular measure adds greatly to that complexity but it does enable us to ensure the burden of the savings we’re making in the spending review are fair.”
The chief secretary received the most hostile questioning from Bassetlaw MP John Mann, who wondered why businesses would be interested in visiting his seat after public services had moved out or gone online.
“What I’d suggest is that the local authority and local businesses are getting together to set up a local enterprise partnership,” Mr Alexander said, before Mr Mann pointed out 3,000 job cuts were taking place at his local authority.
“It sounds like a very good candidate for an application to be made to the regional growth fund to have support for measures which would help the economy at that time,” Mr Alexander said.
Mr Mann asked Mr Alexander whether he had run a business before. The chief secretary to the Treasury confirmed that he had not.
“It’s fairly obvious,” Mr Mann continued, before interrupting Mr Alexander’s outline of his economic experience.
“I did have some more answers, but if you’re not going to let me answer them…” Mr Alexander said.
Mr Mann replied: “Put them in writing. It’ll be a fairly short letter.”
