Full text: Philip Hammond’s conference speech

It’s great to be back in Birmingham – and a privilege to address this conference as Chancellor of the Exchequer. I don’t think I am giving away any state secrets in admitting that I just might have hoped to have been a Treasury Minister a little bit earlier in my political career! In fact, having been Shadow Chief Secretary for the three years up to the 2010 General Election, I rather think that Liam Byrne’s infamous note to his successor – remember it? – “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money”– I rather think it was intended for me. But it went to David Laws. Who published it! And so it became, perhaps, the shortest political suicide note in history! Liam, that message to your successor was an admission of Labour’s abject failure.

My predecessor didn’t leave me a note. But if he had, here’s what it would have said: “Dear Chancellor, Employment is up; Wages are rising; the Deficit is down and income tax has been cut for tens of millions of people.”