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Government Capital Expenditure

As the hon. Lady knows, Andrew Foster has been brought in to look at those issues and he will report as soon as he is able to do so. The Liberal Democrat motion is also wrong to criticise the fact that we have set out in our plans a fiscal consolidation in the period ahead. We have set out how we will get back to balance in the medium term, and I make no apology for that. We need to get back to balance and to set out plainly how we will do that. Indeed, that is what we did in the pre-Budget Report. I think that we are the only country to have set out the trajectory that we will follow to do that, and it is the right thing to do. It will involve, when the upturn comes, a level of public sector net investment that will be lower as a proportion of GDP than it will be next year—but at 1.8 per cent. of GDP it will still be three times as big as in 1997.