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EU Council/Afghanistan, India and Pakistan

My hon. Friend is absolutely right that what used to be called the one-club policy of using only interest rates—of using only monetary policy—will not work in the circumstances that we now face. The more the Conservative party ties itself to that, the more it ties itself to the failed policies of the past. The reason why fiscal policy is important is that we are in a period of low inflation with low interest rates—low inflation next year, following the low interest rates we currently have. That is why fiscal policy can have the greatest effect. If the Conservative party is going to say that this is the right time to stop building schools, to stop building hospitals, to cut back on transport and to cut back on the roads, and to say that it will severely cut public spending from 2010 onwards, it will have to explain why it is making nurses, doctors, teachers and others unemployed. That is the policy of the Conservative party.