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AMENDMENT OF THE LAW

Perhaps the right hon. Member for Witney misled the House unintentionally in this respect: he said that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was the worst Chancellor in recent memory. I beg to disagree. The right hon. Member for Witney was special adviser to Norman Lamont; that is the embarrassment that he was trying to cover up with his smokescreen. The right hon. Gentleman made another criticism with which I strongly disagree, and it is one that Opposition Members have repeated. They say that in the past 10 years the Government have not fixed the roof while the sun shone—that is the phrase that they used. That is just a misconception about what has been going on. I will give one example showing why they are wrong about that. I remember when the third generation mobile phone licences were up for auction. The previous Chancellor raised about £30 billion from the sale. What did he do with most of that money? He paid off debt and reduced the public debt. That seems the perfect definition of fixing the roof while the sun shines, so the right hon. Member for Witney was absolutely wrong on that point. That action is one of the reasons why more public finances now go to the front line, rather than being spent on paying debt, which is what used to happen. Under the Conservative Administration, the public finances paid off failure.