As mortgage rates soar, I asked the Minister why, the Conservative Party, which once prided itself on being the party of homeowners, now has nothing to offer mortgage holders or those who dream of homeownership.

Toby Perkins: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Conservative Party once prided itself on being the party of homeowners. The fact that we long ago ran out of Conservative questioners makes it absolutely clear that Tory MPs realise they have nothing to say to those people. Doesn’t the Minister realise that constituents in Chesterfield, who are desperately worried of the cost of their mortgage, will not have heard a single word from him that suggests things are going to get better as a result of this government’s actions?

Minister: Thank you. Well thank you for the question from the Hon. Member for Chesterfield. I can absolutely reassure him that this government is focussed on his constituents, even if his colleagues find it useful just to ask the same question again and again and again, Madam Deputy Speaker. What we are focussed on is not making the sort of unfunded spending commitments, the £28 billion, described by the Member for Leeds West, herself, as reckless, that would really cause difficulties for mortgage holders in Chesterfield and across the whole of the United Kingdom.