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The Economy

I am puzzled by that number, which the Chancellor used on Monday. I checked up afterwards on where he had got it from. I think that he added together the VAT cut, which is less than 1 per cent. of GDP, to the bringing forward of public investment; I think that that is how he got that number. The problem is that that bringing forward of public investment is not happening for the reasons given by the Leader of the Opposition in Prime Minister’s questions. We know that colleges in our constituencies have spent a small fortune doing feasibility studies or preliminary works, and that they have now been told by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills that they are not allowed to proceed. That public investment is being stopped and it will be clawed back during the next financial year of 2010-11. One asks a basic question about where the stimulus is and what will happen to it.