---

Finance Bill

The leader of the hon. Lady’s party was helpful in the Budget debate in acknowledging the success of the British economy. I am grateful that she has acknowledged the correctness of the policy that was struck in 1997. If that was a policy that the Liberal Democrats agree with, it goes to show that it is not possible to get it wrong all the time. We all very much welcome that. There are many other indicators. My test is not growth, although that is important. The thing that affects human beings of working age more than anything else is whether they have a job. If one looks at the misery in families up and down the country over the years, which we have all come across, sometimes in our own families, we can see that things have been at a nadir when people have had the least opportunity of getting employment. The major gain in our economic performance made by the Government is the fact that employment is at an all-time high. Unemployment—not just this year or last year, or this month or last month, but over 10 years—is at a sustained low level. Unemployment in my constituency is way under half of what it was in 1997. That is the major achievement. That is what gives people hope, dignity and opportunity. That, to me, is the test of success in a global economy. If we do not compete successfully in a global economy, we do not compete on employment in the world in which we live. It is useful again to consider further why we have been able to achieve that. To some extent, it is about the business world and people in general having confidence in what is going to happen—in knowing that the economy is in good hands and that policies on tackling inflation, on having an independent determination of interest rates and on having high employment as a major political and economic goal are going to be consistent. Everybody knows that that is the case. People might not agree with some of the objectives, but they know what they are. It is that stability, given by the strong leadership of this Government, and in particular by the Chancellor, who has sustained it over 11 Budgets, that has got the economy in a position where it is competing successfully in the global world.