John McDonnell vs. George Osborne on tax credits: a surprisingly calm and serious affair

George Osborne and John McDonnell went head-to-head at Treasury Questions today and one topic predictably dominated: tax credits. There was a charged atmosphere in the Commons as the shadow chancellor explained ‘the Chancellor has a choice before him’ and outlined his proposal for reversing the planned cuts to tax credits. The plan differs somewhat from Osborne’s:

‘He can push on with the tax giveaways to multinational corporations. He can press on with tax cuts to the wealthiest few in inheritance tax that he announced in his summer budgets. Or he can reverse those tax breaks for the few and instead go for a less excessive surplus target in 2019-20 and be in a position to avoid penalising the 3m working families with these tax credit cuts, and stick to his self-imposed charter.

‘Is he prepared to listen to reason on this matter? Is he willing, or is anyone on that side prepared to step up and show some leadership on this issue?’

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McDonnell was heckled by the Tory benches ‘that’s rich!’ before Osborne responded, which can be summed up as ‘same old Labour party that can’t be trusted’:

‘Let’s remember, we inherited a tax system where city bankers were paying lower tax rates than the people who cleaned for them, and multinationals were paying no tax at all.