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Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

That was an entertaining speech from the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne), but the public will be looking for the substance and experience that we heard yesterday, rather than the personal attacks and shallow self-regard that we have just heard. Even with all the expenditure on his public school education, the hon. Gentleman cannot even manage to be courteous about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I have to remind Opposition Members that Comic Relief was last week. We also remember when the hon. Member for Tatton wrote all those wonderful jokes for the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) when he was Leader of the Opposition. The trouble is that he also helped him with the policies—and we all saw what happened there. We have seen Conservative Back Benchers get over-excited before. We saw it before the 2001 and the 2005 general elections. If we compare the Budget speech yesterday with today’s response, it seems to me that Conservative Members have learned nothing from their previous experiences. We had a Budget yesterday that concentrated on the environment, on science and innovation and on the issues of the 21st century, particularly the policies that we will need—including higher education, which I shall come on to soon—to maintain the economic stability that we have enjoyed over the last 10 years into the new century. Crucial to all that was, of course, education.