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Dissolution of Parliament

I have already signalled that I want to make progress to allow other Members to get in. If the hon. Gentleman wants to make a speech, no doubt he will attempt to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have a Government who delayed when the banking crisis started, refusing to guarantee sterling deposits across the banking system, and who took a year to get a banking Act on the statute book, but who even now have not introduced changes to the very banking regulations that led to many of the problems in the first place. We have a Government who failed to understand the impact on the poorest when they abolished the 10p rate of tax, who failed to act to temper the rise of fuel prices and whose VAT cut protected less than half the jobs that direct capital investment would have protected. That last point is vital. While the Prime Minister talks the talk of fiscal stimulus, he has failed to walk the walk. While President Obama is delivering a real fiscal stimulus—a state such as Maryland, which is the same size as Scotland and larger than Wales, will have £2 billion of extra resources to spend in 2010—this Government are planning to cut £1 billion from the Scottish budget. [Interruption.] They are cutting £1 billion from public spending in Scotland and directly threatening 9,000 jobs. [Interruption.]